I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has added an oil pressure gauge to their airhead. Also does anyone know offhand what thread the sensor port is?
• Not to belittle your request in any way, but I'd be interested to understand why you need to know your oil pressure more often than once a year.
• If you simply need better warning before oil calamity, then maybe a red LED in the oil pressure warning light would be the less expensive, more direct answer. I put a blue LED from SuperBrightLEDs.Com in my Hi-beam indicator and (Wow) I can see that indicator even in broad daylight !!
• Believe the thread is 10mm, but can't remember the TPMM, and I'm not near my shop or thread gauges.
Owning an old Airhead is easy.
Keeping an old Airhead running great is the true test.
Why is a good question. I guess other than knowing it turns off when the engine starts I have no other feedback. I don't know what pressure turns the light off. According to some of the $2000 o-ring articles, you can have enough pressure to turn the light off but still do some serious damage at cruise RPM over time. I've seen some nice gauges and kits, but they all seem to be 1/8 or 1/4 NPT. A fitting that would adapt from the metric thread to NPT would make things easy. Keeping the indicator light as well would be ideal.
It's true, the light turns off at a very low pressure, something like 5-10 psi, which is definitely not enough to support good engine health.
You'd probably have to have that T-adapter made, what with mixed metric and NPT thread forms.
Owning an old Airhead is easy.
Keeping an old Airhead running great is the true test.
It's true, the light turns off at a very low pressure, something like 5-10 psi, which is definitely not enough pressure to support good engine health.
You'd probably have to have that T-adapter made, what with mixed metric and NPT thread forms.
Owning an old Airhead is easy.
Keeping an old Airhead running great is the true test.
I have often thought both would be useful. The once a year comment has me wondering...
Too cold to work in the garage today so I ordered some fittings for this project.
http://www.jegs.com/i/VDO/918/240-850/10002/-1
There appear to be many 1/8 NPT gauge kits available. I'm opting for a small bourdon tube type and I'll locate it down low near the engine. I'd be interested to know if anyone has added extra gauges to the RS dash. Little more work than I'm up for now. If I were to do that I'd probably go with a sender type gauge.
FYI there's a site called e-gauges where the bastards gouge on shipping and don't let you know until you're in the check out process. I didn't buy anything from them.
VDO makes a sensor that runs the light with one contact and the gauge with the other, no tees needed.
I put an oil pressure gauge on my '95 R100RT, and I like it. 120 psi at idle cold, 80 psi at speed hot, about 30 psi at idle hot. My timing chain rattles at less than 30 psi, need to look into that. I agree with other posts that an oil pressure gauge is not essential, but I find it informing and reassuring. The gauge is a VDO 150-111, 52 mm, 150psi, 270 degree sweep, mechanical, about $40. The oil pressure port adapter is from Vibrant Performance of Canada, P/N 10595, 12mm x 1.5 male and female ends, with three 1/8 npt ports, about $25. The stock low pressure switch is retained. A copper tubing and fitting kit from Autometer is about $15. I can provide pictures if anyone is interested. The previous owner hacked an ugly hole in the dashboard to install a switch for his garage door opener. The oil pressure gauge fills that hole nicely.
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