I recently bought one of the boost/oil pressure gauge kits for sale on eBay - it's a great kit, with all the little pieces and extra goodies that you need for a full install (including extremely detailed picture instructions). Saturday, I got both gauges mounted and the boost gauge hooked up and working.

I'm now ready to start working on hooking up the oil pressure gauge. The kit is designed so that you drill and tap the center of the oil filter housing, and attach a pressure line there. To be safe, I purchased a spare housing from Classic and now that I have it, I'm concerned about the whole drilling and tapping process. The area to be drilled/tapped is fairly thin, and since I haven't ever done this before I would appreciate any pointers or suggestions. The specs say to drill and tap with 1/8" pipe thread.

Has anybody done this, and how did it go? I guess I could take it to a machine shop and have them do it, if that's the safest route. I would just hate to screw up the housing and have to get another.

 

BBD, a few have done this, and to be honest, I'm aware of at least a couple who had issues, if not right away, down-the-road...

For oil pressure, I'd most recommend tapping off of the stock pressure sender location. ColoradoMark had the most recent thread on this topic. I had one over on MINI2 somewhere...

I have an oil temp gauge "waiting" for an ideal spot to get such a reading. I really don't want to dork around with the cap, at least not in that thin material location (top). If need be, I'll do the oil drain plug, but that is not an accurate place to get oil temp readings.

If you are willing to be patient, an aftermkt oil cooler is bound to have a couple tap points - ideally before the cooling section.

 

I chickened out and took my spare housing over to the local machine shop - he's going to drill and tap it for me for about $10. We'll see how it works out when I get it back.

 

THat's what I did too - had the machine shop tap it for the temp sensor. I've got the temp sensor running from an adapter on the rear of the engine. Do a search here and on MIN2 for pics.

 

Looking at installing the Oil temp and pressure gauges. Could I get pics of the installs? Is there a way to install the pressure gauge and still maintain the stock gauge? What parts would be needed?

Can you drill and tap the drain plug for the oil temp? Enough meat there?
Thanks for any help.:smile: