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This is my adapter for the Smith's oil pressure/water temp capillary temperature sensing bulb. It's a Mishimoto 32mm sender adapter that I drilled out for 3/8-18 threads to fit the adapter that came with the gauge. I think it is actually British threads, so it doesn't fit perfectly. I made up for it with teflon tape. I was thinking I should really braze it to be sure, so I got some extra hose and connected it to my R50. The Mini this is for isn't home today, so I volunteered my other car to pressure check the fitting. That red tape is just some temporary support to keep from kinking the capillary tube right at the neck while I'm doing all this testing and attachment and fitting.
Even without being able to drive anywhere, the gauge proved useful. The Mini temp gauge is always saying everything is fine: it goes straight to the middle mark and stays there no matter what. But I could see this other one is still cold, because after installing this setup, there was still air in the hoses.
I pulled the bleed plug and slowly siphoned in coolant until it didn't take any more. Then I plugged it and the temperature started rising. At this point the temperature stabilized at 212, but I could hear my fan constantly cycling on full speed. I shut off the air conditioning, and the temperature quickly rose to the top of the gauge, over 230 degrees.
So it looks like my low speed fan never comes on. When I turned the A/C back on, it returned to 212 and stabilized. The Mini's regular water temp gauge doesn't tell you any of this is going on. Just sits there, never budges, always saying the temp is normal.
So I think I'll need to fix the fan resistor on my justa Cooper.
The important thing is that my adapter passed the test. I could use this in my R53 and I think it will work fine. Although maybe I'll braze it anyway, just so I never have to fix it again.
The total for all four gauges, a fitting, and shipping to Seattle was £291.22, about US$ 377. In the past, every package that came to me via Royal Mail or DHL from the UK arrived smashed beyond recognition, and only the best packed stuff arrived undamaged. But with this, and some other Mini parts I've ordered recently from the UK, I've had no problems at all. Not even a long wait.
I have a Milltek exhaust en route from RoadRunner Milltek of the UK as well. Even with overseas shipping, their prices are lower than any of the US vendors. I got my Wipac driving lights direct from the UK for the same reason.
I hope it's clear this is NOT a kit for designed for the BMW Mini or any other new Mini. It's made for the classic Mini and getting it to work in my R53 is totally custom, totally on me. And technically, I haven't succeeded. Yet; stay tuned.
I'd totally install Lucas rally lights, if I didn't already have Wipacs.
I drilled through the firewall to route this capillary bulb to the water hose bleed valve. The fitting nut isn't removable; the hole has to be almost an inch across. But it comes with a grommet installed. I routed it under the intercooler, same as the tube for the boosts gauge.
Next, oil pressure, and the easy one, volts. And the clock.
Today, also janky, but at least there's more of it.
I spent most of today runing the wires for my rear fog light, since this Mini didn't come pre-wired. Doesn't work: needs dealer flash.
I also attached the other two gauges, time and volts. What I really want is to move the clock and voltmeter down to the center console, if I can ever find the panel for that. I really like the pressure/temp gauge and boost, but having the volts and clock so close to front and center isn't helping me drive.
I've only hooked up plumbing, no electrical yet. So the clock and voltmeter are not working yet, and there's no lights yet.
I need to find two more 1/8 FIP x 1/8 compression elbow fittings. Tacoma Screw didn't have them, and Nebar Hose and Fittings is closed on weekends. Until then, the plumbing sticks out far in the back and the gauges have to ride high above the dash. With some elbows, I can bring them down lower.
You can see how this is going to look though: the off-white "magnolia" color contrasts with the sliver, as I expected. I don't really mind that as much as the chrome/not chrome bezel contrast. So I need chrome trim for at least my tach, if not the whole dash. Possibly I will try Out Motoring's white gauge faces. They still won't match -- off white is not white. But I think the overall look will work.
Aside from that, what's really cool is how these gauges have no idea what the car is doing. The temp gauge keeps reading the temp after you shut the car off, lock it, walk away, go to bed. It just does its thing. You can see in the picture above, the car has been off for a half hour, but the water is still hot.
The oil pressure and boost are always on too, except that when the engine is off they read zero. Buy you still notice how they start and stop reading out of synch with the ignition key. So when you shut the engine off, the oil pressure and intake vacuum drop to zero, but not instantly. Cool.
I got ahold of an auxiliary gauges panel for the center console, and I moved the two electric gauges (the voltmeter and clock) down there from the Cravenspeed pods, and relocated the two mechanical gauges to the lower pods. This is a lot cleaner looking:
I think today I'm going into front end service mode to replace my oil pan gasket, so it will be easy to move the adapter for the water temp adapter. It rubs against the intercooler where it is now, but there's lots of room down where the lower hose is, around the throttle body. I held off cutting any hoses until I was sure this worked. So now I have to find where I put that air bleeder T-fitting to put back where I have the sender adapter now.
I also got another Smith's gauge, for oil temperature, which means I have another capillary tube to route and mount. I don't really like replacing my oil drain plug with a gauge sender, so I'm going to look at drilling into the side of my oil pan while I have it off. The fittings I have should make that work pretty well. I can tap a 3/8 FPT hole if I have a thick enough aluminum wall to work with. If it's thin, I can use a bulkhead fitting. Either way, it's less likely to leak if it stays put all the time and nobody has to undo it every time they change the oil.
I don't know where I'm going to put the third mechanical gauge.
And if it does leak I have gauges out the wazoo to warn me.
I've got my oil pan off (trying to eliminate a leak, hoping it's not the rear main seal) and this is where I think I'll drill for the capillary bulb. the wall is thin but I can still cut some threads into it. The bushing will come down on to a crush washer on the outside, and then I think I'll braze the threads from the inside, then another crush washer on the inside and a nut on top, laying in the bottom of the pan in the first picture. The sender will screw nicely into the bushing.
I have to route the tube first, and put the pan up there because I want to make sure it's going to clear the power steering cooling fan. If so, I can locate it above the drain plug, or to the right of the engine mount. The tubing appears to be long enough to reach all the way around to the front of the engine, if I wanted to go that route.
The bulb is a couple inches above the bottom pickup of the oil pump, so under some circumstances it might not be fully immersed. But it's still going to have hot oil raining down on it and splashing around. That should give me a pretty good reading of the hottest oil in the engine.
Yikes. Drilling holes in your oil pan is scary easy. That aluminum is softer than typical alloys you work with. Not surprising I guess; it's an oil pan not a trick part.
The wall is thin and the pipe thread only catches 4 or 5 threads going into it. I wasn't able to do much with brazing it; the bushing is so tight that none of the solder filled in. So I relied on Loctite instead. But because it is so thin, I could put a nut on the back, also Loctited, which I think gives me a good bulkhead fitting.
On the car, the bulb went right in, and I think the routing of the line is good. Ready to put it all back together.
Got the oil temp gauge mounted over to the left of the oil pressure/water temp. The oil temperature is in Celsius, and the water temperature is in Fahrenheit. Why? Made in England, that's why.
I'm pretty confident the bulkhead fitting in my oil pan is going to work. No leaks so far.
Yesterday I ran the OE wiring harness for my auxillary lights, but still haven't wired up the voltmeter, clock, or instrument lights. I did install the Out Motoring white gauge face on the tach, but not yet on the speedometer. Chrome rings on the way.
So here's what those gauges look like now. I've got the white face on my tach. The chrome trim rings for the tach and speedometer arrived today; not installed yet. I think anyone who really wanted these gauge faces to all match would have ordered the black Smith's gauges and black Out Motoring faces. The white and magnolia will always be a little off, but I think it'll be good enough when I add the chrome rings. Or maybe I'll try a $6 gel sheet over the white and see what that does.
I'm sure I'll keep adjusting the positions of the pods for a while until I find my best place for them, but this is pretty close to how it will look when I'm done. Still no lights. I have to cut the bulb mount tubes shorter so the bulb sockets don't hit my dash. I'm pretty sure that will work. Probably.
08-17-2016, 01:40 PM
