Thanks for the pro/con comparison for electrical vs mechanical David.

For fluid measurement I view the mechanical as adding a potential failure point and that is contrary to the way I want things. Oil and coolant sensors will be electrical. I will try to get "reasonable" accuracy and value consistency even more. Your comment about how digital displays aren't as easy to scan is along the same lines; the needles are visual clues that things are where they should be or that something is off. As long as it's consistently in the same place the visual clue is good.

I found these listed in the archives as good choices (posted by David Etter) and I see all of them are available on CIP1.ca:
1x # 350-040 VDO electric Oil Pressure gauge
1x #360-006 Dual contact VDO oil press. Sender M10, install in place of existing sender on head
1 x #310-106 Oil Temp Gauge 300 Deg
1 x #323-423  300 Deg Oil Temp sender M10
This does not look like as straight forward to install though. I gather it should go in where the existing high pressure  sender is by the oil filter and that to keep the existing sender requires some "creativity" (adding in a T adapter at one of the two sender locations).

Electrical coolant temp sender + gauge: still researching those but the "stock" coolant sender is less than 2 years old and still working fine. Haven't found what the VDO part for that is yet� suggestions?

Regards, Peter Kraiker
nextchapter.kraikerphoto.com
Toronto, ON, Canada
'82 L Westfalia 1.9 TD 5 Spd (Babe)

On 2012-08-16, at 8:27 PM, David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET> wrote:

> Con- there's a stiffish tube running to the gauge, either the capillary tube from the temp sender or an actual pipe in the case of oil or manifold pressure gauges, and one end is tied directly to the vibrating motor.  Having that tube fail on an oil gauge could be a big problem, both evil mess and loss of engine oil