well... my thinking (and I may be wrong)... on vanagon the more information
the driver has (oil temp/oil pressure/coolant temp/voltage etc..) the
worrier he is...

when I had a 1978 air cooled barn door, and later a 1985 1.9 wbx... I know
nothing except oil/filter/spark plugs change... and I was not worried...
and now I am worrier than before because of those infos...

On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 5:30 AM kenneth wilford (Van-Again) <
kenwilfy@comcast.net> wrote:

> Here is my take on the oil pressure gauge situation.  You are driving down
> the road.  You have an oil pressure gauge installed.  Every so often you
> take a look at your gauge to see what your oil pressure is doing.  It has a
> "normal" range when at cold idle, hot idle, 65 mph down the interstate.
> You figure out what this "normal" range is, and then file that away in your
> brain.  One day you look down and something is not right.  Oil pressure is
> much lower than it normally is and you react by pulling over and checking
> things out.  Or over time you start seeing a trend where the oil
> pressure isn't the same at start up, or takes longer to register at start
> up, etc.  In effect you establish a "normal" and then when things are no
> longer the way they should be, you can intervene in some way (pull over,
> add oil, replace oil, replace filter, etc).
> Accuracy, really has very little to do with it if we are being honest.
> That is why in Ford pickup trucks and Jeeps, they have an oil pressure
> gauge that is essentially a dummy light.  If your oil pressure is above a
> certain value, the oil pressure "gauge" goes to the middle and everything
> looks fine.  When oil pressure goes below a certain range, the oil pressure
> gauge goes to zero to scare you so you will pull over and investigate.  99%
> of the people out there this is what they are actually looking for even if
> they don't realize it.  The folks that call me wanting to buy our oil
> pressure gauge kit, want to be able to disable that pesky oil buzzer system
> in the cluster.  Or if they don't, that when that buzzer is going off, they
> can look at the gauge to see if it is a false alarm or not instead of
> having to pull over and unload everything over the engine while on a trip.
> They aren't really looking for accuracy.  They aren't engine builders, or
> engine testers, they are drivers and sometimes simple is better.
>
> Our kit is simple.  You remove your oil filter, you install the adapter,
> reinstall the oil filter,  you run a premade length of wire to the front
> and plug it into the gauge that you mount on the dash.  You still have to
> wire the lighting and the power and ground but that is it.  Very simple and
> easy.  Is there a "better" place in the system to look for oil pressure for
> accuracy?  Possibly.  But is that what you really need?  Most likely not.
> You just want to be able to drive, enjoy your van, and not panic if the oil
> light starts to flicker for no reason or the buzzer starts to go off due to
> a flaky dash cluster, or bad wire.  Or you want to see trends over time.
> Either way you can do that just as well with my kit.
>
> The kit is reasonably priced for what it is, and how it takes most of the
> work and complexity out of doing this, so more people can do it and feel
> confident in getting it done.  You don't have to be an amazing mechanic to
> install this, just competent.
>
> So if you need accuracy for the sake of accuracy then you might, maybe get
> more accuracy out of a VDO sensor and gauge but you are going to pay a lot
> more for it.  And then you are still going to have to rig up an oil line,
> and stuff and things that will look like a rig up at the end of the day not
> matter how good of a job you do.
>
> Just my two cents.
>
> Ken
>
>