- Posts
- 11,023
- Location
- North of the Wall
After I rebuilt my engine I thought I'd add a few gauges to help keep an eye on it's condition. I also fancied having a few more extra gauges 
Not having fitted any before it was all new to me and so I searched for threads on LZ and posted a few questions. Anyway, thought I'd stick a quick guide on here to show how I ended up fitting them.
First though, a big thank you to @Kwakerman who gave me loads of help with the electrickery bits. Cheers I'm not claiming this to be an exemplar installation though, so you may want to disassociate yourself from it!
So, I decided to get the gauges etc from Demon Tweeks as they get mentioned on LZ a lot. To be honest the guy I dealt with wasn't that helpful when discussing appropriate gauges for the parameters I would be measuring. He recommended gauges in bar, but I wish I had chosen PSI. The oil gauge is 0-10 bar and the boost gauge 0-3 bar. I suspect PSI gauges would have given me a more sensitive/accurate reading. I've looked on the Demon Tweeks website since and they have a much reduced range, so I don't know if they were just trying to get shot of stuff or if he did give the best advice. Anyway, it's worth considering what gauges you want!
This is the kit I bought.
I also bought some automotive cable, spade connectors and a harness connecting block.
First thing I did was screw the brass nipple connector in to the back of the inlet manifold and ran a length of vacuum tubing through in to the cab.
I just fed the vacuum pump through the grommet in the bulkhead and ran the tube along the back of the instrument binnacle to the ash tray in the centre of the dash.
I decided to fit a two gauge pod in to the ash tray holder as I didn't want to cut in to the dash at all by fitting one of the Raptor or Mudstuff units. I think both need some adjustment of the dash to make them fit.
It just looks like this.
Then I started wiring up the harness to supply the bulb in each gauge and the two feeds and the earth for the oil pressure gauge.
Kwakerman suggested I put in a connection block, to split the harness, so that I could easily take out the gauges and the pod if need be. I thought that was a great idea and so that's what I went for.
First off I made up two parallel positive wires and two parallel negative wires for the bulbs. They are soldered together, at the socket pins, to make them parallel.
All the turbo boost gauge needs is the electrical supply to the bulb, so that's it sorted
The oil pressure gauge also requires three more wires. A switched live feed, a feed from the gauge and an earth.
These were soldered in to their own, individual connector pins and had the spade connectors soldered on to the other end of the wires, as per the bulb wires.
The pins were then pushed in to one side of the connecting block.
So that completed the 'gauge' side of the harness.
To supply the bulbs I took out one of the bulbs from the instrument binnacle. I cut the bulb wires, slid heat shrink on ready, soldered wires to the positive and negative supply to the bulb and sealed them with the heat shrink.
I then needed a switched supply from behind the instrument binnacle. These are the thicker white wires, so I spliced a fuse holder in to one of them and ran a red (for positive) wire from it.
I then fitted the oil pressure sender unit. To do this I unscrewed the original pressure warning sensor out of the oil filter housing. You obviously have to remove the cable from it first. In the first picture you can see a hexagonal adaptor that allows the new pressure sender and the original pressure warning sensor to be coupled. In the above picture it has a braided hose attached to it, but I didn't use that.
Here it all is in place.
The new pressure sensor has two screwed terminals and I ran a feed wire from the sender one.
I ran the feed cable through the spare vacuum pipe I had left over as a way of protecting it. You can see it leaving the sender and going out of the bottom of the picture. (next picture up)
This cable was also ran through the bulkhead grommet and in to the cab.
So, I now had the two wires from the bulb holder, the switched live via the new fuse holder and the feed wire from the new oil pressure sender unit.
I gathered these together and held them together with small wraps of tape.
I then fully wrapped it in a few layers of electrical tape.
Then I pulled the new harness through the back of the dash and out through the ashtray socket, soldered the connector pins on the ends of the wires and then pushed the pins in to the other half of the block.
That was almost it. Connected the terminals to the gauges
and gave it a whirl. The oil pressure gauge needle immediately went full scale deflection. My oil pressure sender was described as 'non insulated return'. This means that it doesn't earth itself by being screwed in to the oil filter housing. So it didn't work! Only thing left to do was to run an earth cable from the other screwed terminal on the sender to a nearby suitable earthing point.
I had a bolt that fitted the hole in the timing case and so clamped the earth cable there.
The earth cable need a proper terminal!
Here's the finished unit with the lights on
Not having fitted any before it was all new to me and so I searched for threads on LZ and posted a few questions. Anyway, thought I'd stick a quick guide on here to show how I ended up fitting them.
First though, a big thank you to @Kwakerman who gave me loads of help with the electrickery bits. Cheers
I'm not claiming this to be an exemplar installation though, so you may want to disassociate yourself from it! So, I decided to get the gauges etc from Demon Tweeks as they get mentioned on LZ a lot. To be honest the guy I dealt with wasn't that helpful when discussing appropriate gauges for the parameters I would be measuring. He recommended gauges in bar, but I wish I had chosen PSI. The oil gauge is 0-10 bar and the boost gauge 0-3 bar. I suspect PSI gauges would have given me a more sensitive/accurate reading. I've looked on the Demon Tweeks website since and they have a much reduced range, so I don't know if they were just trying to get shot of stuff or if he did give the best advice. Anyway, it's worth considering what gauges you want!
This is the kit I bought.
First thing I did was screw the brass nipple connector in to the back of the inlet manifold and ran a length of vacuum tubing through in to the cab.
I just fed the vacuum pump through the grommet in the bulkhead and ran the tube along the back of the instrument binnacle to the ash tray in the centre of the dash.
I decided to fit a two gauge pod in to the ash tray holder as I didn't want to cut in to the dash at all by fitting one of the Raptor or Mudstuff units. I think both need some adjustment of the dash to make them fit.
It just looks like this.
Then I started wiring up the harness to supply the bulb in each gauge and the two feeds and the earth for the oil pressure gauge.
Kwakerman suggested I put in a connection block, to split the harness, so that I could easily take out the gauges and the pod if need be. I thought that was a great idea and so that's what I went for.
First off I made up two parallel positive wires and two parallel negative wires for the bulbs. They are soldered together, at the socket pins, to make them parallel.
All the turbo boost gauge needs is the electrical supply to the bulb, so that's it sorted
The oil pressure gauge also requires three more wires. A switched live feed, a feed from the gauge and an earth.
These were soldered in to their own, individual connector pins and had the spade connectors soldered on to the other end of the wires, as per the bulb wires.
The pins were then pushed in to one side of the connecting block.
So that completed the 'gauge' side of the harness.
To supply the bulbs I took out one of the bulbs from the instrument binnacle. I cut the bulb wires, slid heat shrink on ready, soldered wires to the positive and negative supply to the bulb and sealed them with the heat shrink.
I then needed a switched supply from behind the instrument binnacle. These are the thicker white wires, so I spliced a fuse holder in to one of them and ran a red (for positive) wire from it.
I then fitted the oil pressure sender unit. To do this I unscrewed the original pressure warning sensor out of the oil filter housing. You obviously have to remove the cable from it first. In the first picture you can see a hexagonal adaptor that allows the new pressure sender and the original pressure warning sensor to be coupled. In the above picture it has a braided hose attached to it, but I didn't use that.
Here it all is in place.
I ran the feed cable through the spare vacuum pipe I had left over as a way of protecting it. You can see it leaving the sender and going out of the bottom of the picture. (next picture up)
This cable was also ran through the bulkhead grommet and in to the cab.
So, I now had the two wires from the bulb holder, the switched live via the new fuse holder and the feed wire from the new oil pressure sender unit.
I gathered these together and held them together with small wraps of tape.
I then fully wrapped it in a few layers of electrical tape.
Then I pulled the new harness through the back of the dash and out through the ashtray socket, soldered the connector pins on the ends of the wires and then pushed the pins in to the other half of the block.
That was almost it. Connected the terminals to the gauges
and gave it a whirl. The oil pressure gauge needle immediately went full scale deflection. My oil pressure sender was described as 'non insulated return'. This means that it doesn't earth itself by being screwed in to the oil filter housing. So it didn't work! Only thing left to do was to run an earth cable from the other screwed terminal on the sender to a nearby suitable earthing point.
I had a bolt that fitted the hole in the timing case and so clamped the earth cable there.
The earth cable need a proper terminal!
Here's the finished unit with the lights on
