Aircooled VW South Africa

I hooked up one this weekend. I bought an auto gauge unit, complete with receiver and sender unit, all the fittings for R170. The Main reason I bought this was to avoid another over-heating problem by actually being able to warn me that the oil temp is getting hotter before the engine literally shuts down due to too much heat.


The sender units comes with a T-section and a block off nut so you can run the oil pressure sensor, however I'm wondering how reliable are these units are at showing the temp of the oil. As suggested it's been fitted nest to the oil pressure sensor out back.......but Michael said that it's prone to air block at that position that will in turn show the crank temp and not the oil temp.

Anyone?

Ps, the actual gauge is WAY too modern looking at at the moment is wedged with double tape under the dash to hide the bling.......

I've never worked on a Type I engine but my sender is mounted through a hole that I drilled through the oil-screen cover. Its fastened with a nut on the other side + a gasket(make sure its still earthed though). Mine is an autoguage sender and it is compatible with my VDO guages.

eben wrote:I've never worked on a Type I engine but my sender is mounted through a hole that I drilled through the oil-screen cover. Its fastened with a nut on the other side + a gasket(make sure its still earthed though). Mine is an autoguage sender and it is compatible with my VDO guages.

Oil Screen cover? There's also no mention on earthing the sender.....does this have to be done? If so how????

oil screen = oil sieve = oil strainer
its located in the sump

So basically you've drilled a hole on the round sump cover and have it reading through there?

that's actually a better place than where I have it now.

Question on grounding it in my last question eben???

just make sure that the metal from the sender touches the metal on the sump plate somewhere (not really a big worry as it touches somewhere normally).... one word of advice though.... when you do take the plate out choose carecfully where you drill the hole. there should be no interference with the screen by the body of the sender.... I found 1 position on my typeIV where that was possible so check it out and mark it carefully before you drill

Thanks for the info, I have to drain the oil this weekend as well as tap out a stud for the sump cover, I'll have a look see and see what is do-able. So I take it that I can't utalise the sump drain plug hole that's dead in the centre?

You could i suppose if you have the sump-plug replacement sender but thats a VDO item I think.

I have a bolt that's been tapped that'll fit the sump cover, I'm going to give that a whirl and see if there's any joy.

To avoid having any messy metal particles getting into the running motor from drilling & tapping, the sump plate is a good option, just keep all wiring secure and hope it doesn't catch on anything while driving, another option is to get a oil cooler from a T3 which has a sender unit attached to it & replace that with oil temp sender unit, you can also do a drilling & tapping thing to your existing dog house oil cooler, make sure it gets cleaned 100%, this involves a bit more work than the sump plate. If the motor where open then the best place would be athe the first welsh plug after the oil pickup, oil flow there is constant no wires hanging loose and if the sender packs up it can be easily replaced. My 50c

The only thing that would bother me about drilling the sump plate would be the loose wires hanging below, however I have a moulded steel pipe that I picked up a while ago with a sealed reinforced fitting that should do the trick quite well of protecting the wire. Also I have over 40cms of ground clearance, so this is an added bonus.

The Day the motor gets pulled I'll consider the 2nd option, however it seems to be running fine so far.

Shot mate......now I have something to do on saterday..........LMAO

Here's something I did this weekend. I moved the sender unit from the oil pressure gauge sender unit at the back as I was getting concerned that case temp would show and not actual temp.



I was pleased to see that the new sump plate that I bought that has an oil tap in the centre fits the screw threaded sections of the auto-gauge units perfectly. They give three fittings to use and the smallest one works perfect.



The first time I had it screwed in, you can see it sticks out a lot and interferes with the oil filter unit on the inside.



Still nothing that two washers can't resolve. I'll be moving it down a notch more as to try and get it 100% flush on the inside. I'm using an alternator terminal cut to protect it as much as possible from the elements...



It actually doens't hang down that far and the rear beam under the gearbox actually sits a lot lower. The inside gauge works fine and all I need to do now is to top up with oil and time to test it properly.

Well done... Remember to use nice thick guage wire....

yup..........the speaker wire that I currently have on there isn't going to cut it........

The place VW used to mount a temp gauge from the Factory on my SP2 was the welsch plug or threaded plug next to the fan belt pulley at about 4h00.
I also like the type three cooler idea or altrnatively drill and tap the mount for the doghouse cooler bittough to get to but effective.
I stopped using gauges a long time ago: bugs have so little oil pressure and run so hot that they will drive you crazy in no time at all.
If you can touch and hold the dipstic after driving a while it usually is at the right temperature.
Armand