Posted Wednesday, March 31, 2010 @ 08:32 PM  

Although I could not find a VDO stockist in England, and had been told VDO don't make them any more, they do.

I've found a stockist here in far-away Perth, Western Australia. If you can get stuff here, you can get it anywhere.

They not only stock new VDO oil pressure and temperature gauges with lines, senders etc calibrated in psi or bar, but will test, re-calibrate or repair old ones.

My new direct-reading (ie, no electrical power required) VDO gauges give oil pressure in kg/sq cm, HPa or Bar (all the same thing) and oil temperature from 0 to 120°C.

The pressure gauge is a tiny bit longer than the old one, and marked VDO India, but it fits & works fine.

Posted Tuesday, May 18, 2010 @ 09:33 PM  

What a saga this has become.

I bought new VDO oil pressure and oil temperature gauges.
They look good and work fine.
However... they are a little longer than the originals.
No problem until I came to put my instrument panel back into place.
Because the Fournier's fuselage structure tapers towards the top, the lower gauge fits fine, but the upper one is just too long to get the panel back into place.

I had got the original oil pressure gauge (dated 1968) checked, and it's fine, so I decided to put that back into the upper hole with the new temperature gauge in the lower hole. That way the panel fitted fine.
Of course, this meant swapping them, and THAT meant disconnecting the temp sender from the crankcase the threading it back through the firewall (oops, I SO nearly forgot to wind some locking wire around it to pull it back through again afterwards).

Now they're all good, but I needed some adaptors for my super new, braided oil pressure gauge line.
That took a week of searching and trial-and-error (mostly error!)

If anybody needs to know the thread on the back of a VDO gauge, it's an M12x1.5 pitch.
And NOT a ¼ BSP as I had been told. The thread pitch is similar, but the leakage is torrential.

Just for info.