Oil pressure gage conversion from light?

Has anyone converted their idiot oil pressure light to a conventional gage?

It's clearly comforting to see the actual pressures, like a car, if the light comes on, perhaps it's too late to prevent some degree of damage.

Thanks, Steve
Universal 5424 or M30 hard to tell which?
1984 E-3 #156

Good idea but where would you put the guage? You would just need to replace the sender and get a guage...

Sounds too easy

So your saying it's just a matter of getting a gage and using the same sender unit that is hooked to the light?

The gage could go anywhere perhaps where my hobbs meter is, the hour meter could get mounted elsewhere, perhaps above the panel or other out of the way place

I'll go look at gages and read the instructions in the box and see if we can make one work.

Thanks... Steve

I have thought about doing the same but I think I would rather have an alarm in addition to the light. My boat only has the light. Where can I get and alarm to connect in parallel to the light? I would also like to install a water temp alarm to go at 175.

I disconnected the light and added an alarm figuring I notice an alarm before a gage, though I'd like to have both. The only draw back is you have to listen to the alarm while using the glow plugs. Of course you know it's working

Boat US

treilley said:

I have thought about doing the same but I think I would rather have an alarm in addition to the light. My boat only has the light. Where can I get and alarm to connect in parallel to the light? I would also like to install a water temp alarm to go at 175.

Click to expand...

Boat US used to carry a pair of coolant overheat and low oil pressure sensors and a shared alarm buzzer.

I believe the idiot light oil pressure sender works by establishing a ground when too low oil pressure, so it may carry enough current to drive an alarm on the same feed. At the very least you ought to be able to put a trigger solenoid on it but then that reduces the sensing reliability.

whistling boats

Shadowfax said:

I disconnected the light and added an alarm figuring I notice an alarm before a gage, though I'd like to have both. The only draw back is you have to listen to the alarm while using the glow plugs. Of course you know it's working

Click to expand...

I'm sure we've all heard the pre-start alarm whistle on many modern diesels.

Also lets you know you have left the ignition on.

Alarms are good but to the point of this thread is it would be nice to know before you get to pressure low enough to trip an alarm. This of course assumes you take a look at the guage periodically... If you install a guage you WILL need a different sender one matched to the guage. You can probably get a dual sender that will work for a guage and also have a low pressure (typically 5-10 psi) alarm feed. I have one of these in my VW bus. Its a VDO sender and has standard NPT threads and 2 poles to connect a guage and an idiot light or alarm. I would guess that the OEM sender could be wired to an alarm instead of a light with no other mods. It is simply completing a ground circuit when the pressure is below the threshold so it would supply a ground to what ever alerting device you chose alarm or light. Not sure where you can by the alarm itself but would guess West carries one. If not try torrenson.

It is a very simple thing to add a "T" fitting to the oil pressure port and use a secondary sensor to drive the gauge. Another benefit is a second sensor for the gauge makes it independent of the oil light so less chance they both fail. Now you just have to find a place for the gauge. RT

some more teak

rwthomas1 said:

It is a very simple thing to add a "T" fitting to the oil pressure port and use a secondary sensor to drive the gauge. Another benefit is a second sensor for the gauge makes it independent of the oil light so less chance they both fail. Now you just have to find a place for the gauge. RT

Click to expand...

When we had a 32-200 I added some gauges to the upper coming just aft of the starboard locker. I found a piece of slightly warped teak to mount them on and it was easy to sand it some more to match the coaming curves. We were going to have a sunbrella weather flap to snap over it but sold the boat.

I like the t-fitting idea. Then you have redundancy in sensors.

alarms

A number of years ago I added an alarm buzzer to my M-25XP because the chance of seeing the oil pressure idiot light or the temperature gauge in time on an E-34 is nil. The idiot light doesn't show up during the day time even if you do glance at it.

I used the common Cole Hersee alarm from WM and teed off of the only oil pressure port. Easy to do, but the nipple is longer than ideal to get clearance for installation.

The tougher choice is for the temperature sender as there is only one port on the thermostat housing and the senders are quite large, 3/8 npt as I remember, and the port is too small for a tee and adapters. I ended up putting it in the hot water tank coolant hose. Not ideal, but it works.

It is quite loud, which is good for us old guys, and it changes tone when the glow plugs are energized. Putting a resistor in series would reduce the noise, but l want my neighbors to know who fired up.

E34 senders

Tom (and Rob), thanks for the details.

The low oil pressure sender on a Universal M25 is a pressure switch that grounds the circuit when the pressure drops below about 14 psig. Mine came on 'once' and scared the bejeebees out of me. Never happened again (over 60 hours since), but I plumbed in a mechanical guage and mounted it near the engine. The oil pressure on this 2500 hour engine goes as high as 60 when cold at high rpm and drops to as low as 35 when hot after cruising for a couple hours. I still do not know if I have an engine problem which caused the once occurring low oil press. light but it sure is nice knowing just what the pressure is now.