What does everyone think about tapping a hole in the oil pan for an oil temp sender?

I have my sender out the drain plug hole with an adapter, but when you change the oil, the wire gets spun around. It finally snapped. I could replace the sender and keep it as it is, but I want a long term reliability solution.

I could always add the sender to my aeroquip hose by means of some in-line adapter.

Alternatively, I could get a new sender and keep it in the drain plug, but solder in a small disconnect on the sender wire. Then I could disconnect it for oil changes and prevent any torsional stress on the wire.

 

If I were you, I'd follow the last option... add a disconnect to the existing system. Drilling and tapping the oil pan could cause trouble, and might be looked at as questionable by Mini, should you have a guarantee issue...

Just my two cents

 

I tapped mine....no issues...

 

Only thing you have to worry about that is if the metal is think enough to hold the treads without incident. Otherwise I'd drill a hole and weld a bung on. But thats just me and my paranoia of under designing something.

 

Can you elaborate on how you did yours? I want to keep my options open.

 

I would tap that bad boy.

 

My MINI came with the optional oil temp & battery gauge on the console and the wire can be unplugged from the oil drain plug and than unscrewed. You can probably get it at the MINI dealer. I'd be leery of drilling into my oil pan.

 

The problem with getting another sender is that my gauge is kind of unique. It uses a digital numeric sweep and the sender is pretty specific to this gauge. It might all be their marketing tricks to get you buy it from them, but I want to make sure my gauge reads accuratly.

 

Danny at MINICORSA had a shop make an adapter for mine, we don't seem to have any issues with the wire snagging. Maybe give him a call and see if he has any ideas.

 

See http://www.cravenspeed.com/index.php?productID=74 Works well, I've had one for about a year now.

 

The temp sender is fairly long for this gauge, it wouldnt make it all the way into that. It is a cool idea though. I have the gauge pressure sender in that hole now, I completely removed the stock dummy light sender.

I think its in that hole...its in wherever the stock sender was...heh heh.