Thread: Sensor placement?

depending on the size of your sender unit, at the top of the head there is a threaded plug that goes straight to a water gallery. you will see it. odd one out between your head bolts. i put my vdo sensor there. works a treat. there are few other options of where to put it but from what i was told this is the best place as it is post thermostat. there are other kits which just measure the actual metal temperature. this is meant to be the ideal thing, but i am happy with my coolant measurement.

oil pressure i have a t piece near where oil thermostat is. my sender unit hanging off the brass fitting. better idea would be to have tpiece with house which goes to your sender unit which is bolted to the body work somewhere. when i look at mine i always get a bit scared. looks like it could snap off. hasnt yet. touch wood. other thing you can do it just get rid of the useless factory oil pressure sensor and put your new one in there.

oil temp i only measure my tcase temp. from what i was told though, best place is to put it into one of the hoses that goes to your oil cooler. i forget which. i would say the one that goes into the oil cooler before it is cooled.

my boost i have onto the back of the inlet manifold. again, there is a factory threaded bung there you can tap into. i re routed my turbo boost line to there and then a tpiece where one goes to the pressure sender and other goes to the tpiece at the back of the turbo. you need to blank off where you cut the hose which goes to other side of turbo. this makes your turbo start boosting sooner at wastegate is operated from inlet manifold pressure rather than from outlet of turbo. there is a thread on it which i started. would explain more but in a bit of a hurry now. can pm me and ill give you more details later if you want.

Originally Posted by wllgbsn

I know where the egt sensor goes that's an easy one,

So, where were you thinking of placing it? I recommend you place it before the turbo to get the most useful measurement.

The current set up (was like this for the last ten years at least) was a blanked exhaust gas plate which I'm considering swapping out for a plate with the 1/8npt thread attached for the sensor, I actually already have the plate I believe.

That's the EGR blanking plate. UK and Euro vehicles had an exhaust recirculation setup to pass emissions controls. Australian vehicles were not required to have this and had the plate there from factory. That makes it an easy place to put the egt sensor.

Yeah I was thinking along those lines, if I get enough time this Sunday I'll be having a crack at getting some of these sensors installed, pitty really, im doing a 600km drive on saturday that would have been nice to tests them all, oh well I might have to duck out to central qld some time 😉

For the oil stuff I basically used two t pieces mounted to the original pressure sender location.
Original pressure switch should use am M10x1 thread.
If your senders are VDO they're 1/8th NPT threaded(most likely).

So you'd get one M10x1 to 1/8thNPT t-piece adapter.
It'll have the M10 male and M10 female plus one 1/8thNPT female threads.
These can be harder to find.. and the more common t piece will be the 1/8th NPT type .. where all threads are 1/8th NPT.

So the first t-piece is bolted to the oil filter housing coming out of the engine. original sender is then bolted to the end of that. Second t piece is bolted to the 1/8th NPT female thread in the middle and the first piece is positioned so that it will allow the second t piece to face forward.
It needs to face forward as there could be interference from something if faced to the back of the engine bay. There's more room facing forwards to screw the second t piece in too.
So the second tpiece now faces forward and you have a ton of room to fit the large pressure sender in the middle and the temp switch on the end. You stillhave lots of room to remove the oil filter too.
And the original pressure sender stays put.

I have a photo in my 1Gauge thread of how it'll fit.
Note that I didn't have the 1/8th NPT t-piece, as strangely the mob I got my tpiece from had sold out(they are quite popluar he said.. so I cobbled up my own adapter from a hydraulics parts supplies place.
So my VDO pressure sender in the pics is at the end of the cobbled tpiece the bought tpiece comes out the middle of that cobbled one, VDO pressure sender off the, middle of that and the original on the end of the bought t piece.

If I had to do it again, knowing now what parts are needed, I'd just order the parts before I started cobbling it all together. My D1 is a daily driver and my only transport .. so had to get modded and driven at the same time!

The only caveat with that method is when fitting the large VDO pressure sender unit.
It needs to be the last thing fitted to make life easier.
So I fit all the sensor other than the VDO pressure sender and fitted the tpieces one at a time. Made spanner handling a lot easier. Last thing to 'spanner' up was the VDO pressure sender which was easy as access to it is good from the top and just near the injector pump.
The only thing to watch if you try this is that as you finally tighten the VDO pressure sender, you also need a spanner to counter the rotation of the first tpiece as you put pressure on the VDO sender.

32K klms since install and no leaks and no probs.

ps.

Originally Posted by wllgbsn

...
and yes not all of these are necessary however I think it's pretty cool to be able to monitor your vehicle closely, particularly considering its coming up to 24 years young!

+1.
Not only that, but also good to know that oil is due for a change AND if the oil you last used was any good.

Originally I used (only Penrite) 15W50(they call it plus 60) syth for a summer change.
Oil pressure started to die a little compared to when it was fresh. From memory maybe 60-80Psi in normal operating conditions but then as winter approached I changed to 10W40 synth(plus 50 they call it) .. anyhow something like that.
Just before I changed the 15W50 oil tho I noted pressure dropping to mid 20's at idle and about 50ish at 2K cruise speeds. Ambient temps then at about 20ish or so.

This 10W40 tho with now nearly 10K on it still runs at 60+Psi at the same 2K cruise speeds and 30+Psi at idle. Could be the colder ambient, but I'm doubtful.

Engine coolant has never passed the normal 80-83° (except when I've mucked up the bleeding process).

So for the coming change in a few weeks, I'm thinking to stay with the 10W40 and see how it goes when it nears the 10K change mark with ambients closer to the same for the 15W50 oil.
If your coolant sender is the long probe variety then an good location for the probe is via the bleeder nut on top of the thermostat.

You just need a reducer nut to go from 1/4BSP to 1/8NPT.
The size of the large nut is 1/4BSP. And if yours is still the old original plastic thing .. a good time to replace it too.
A good hydraulics supplies will have this 1/4BSP to 1/8NPT reducer.
Get some copper washers to go with all sensor fittings too. better than tape.

wllgbsn

All those sensors will work, regardless.

The trick is knowing where to put them and why

The why is VERY important

AK83 has some very sound advice


Note... I have owned a MM 1000 ute for 30yrs....gauges ARE everything

...Ute has original engine +80 bore...oil changed every 5K...it still eats oil