Oil gauge

[mazdaspeed23]

Hey guys i have a Trisco Oil Gauge the gauge wasnt working so i traced the wires back and the guy that had the car before didnt hook it up. This gauge is an Electrical gauge ( powered by wires) I have all the wires hooked up but the Oil pressure wire ( Green) Im not sure where to hook it up too.. I unplugged the Plug thats right above the Oil filter, do i splice into that harness? and if so what colour of wire do i hook it up too? And its a 94 mx3 KLZE.

[Ryan]

you need an aftermarket oil pressure sender. the stock oil pressure dealie is a switch, on/off with basically any pressure at all. At least my switch registers before my gauge moves off 0.

looks like this:



Or similar.

You need to know the sweep of your gauge (0-100 psi?) and the voltage (common is 0-5v or 0-12v) and find a compatible sender.

also ground through block or return wire ground.

[mazdaspeed23]

where is the actual sending unit located? i can check and see if theres one already on there.. and its from 0-100psi its 12Volt and i have a good ground.

[Nd4SpdSe]

[Edit]Ah Ryan beat me to the punch. Indeed the OEM oil pressure sensor is a switch[/Edit]

The oil pressure gauge needs a sending unit that's tied into the oil system. I put one in the truck, had to put in a sending unit as well. Most sending units are in standard, while japanese vehicles are metric. I needed to get NPT and BPST pipe adapters for it.



I Teed off where the OEM oil pressure switch is. The last adapter to go back to NPT for the OEM was neglected because BPST and NPT are so very close in thread we didn't want to add weight/leverage to the fitting coming off the block and rather crossthread in the sending unit, which is only $30 anyway.

I can't find a pic of mine, but here's the pic of a Frontier (same diff) that I got the information from

[mazdaspeed23]

ya def dont have anything that looks like that under the car... why cant you just splice into the wires that are already there since they go right into the cluster gaguge anyways?

[Nd4SpdSe]

Cause the OEM pressure sensor, is as Ryan also said, ON/OFF:
Not enough pressure, switch releases, turn OIL light on in the cluster
Sufficient pressure, switch is pressed, OIL light stays off.

The oil/pressure in the system literally pushes the switch on/off, it doesn't measure how much pressure is in the system...

[Ryan]

You could just hook it up to the switch, but it would read 0 PSI until the car stars, then it would peg the gauge to 100 PSI all the time. Not really useful. Might wreck it too.

[Nd4SpdSe]

Lol, so exactly like in my Rx8, and the later Miata's that had the gauge (the earlier ones with the oil pressure gauge actually was functional)

(Yes, sadly the oil pressure gauge in my 8 is useless as a gauge)

[mazdaspeed23]

lol well thats kinda gay. so where can i buy the complete set up that i need to hook the gauge up?

[Nd4SpdSe]

I got mine at Princess Auto, but they don't sell those gauges anyone

However the PA engine stand/test setup had one, you could ask if you can get one from that kit (say a replacement since "yours" is no longer working)
http://www.princessauto.com/pal/product ... ng-Station

[mazdaspeed23]

i have the gauge, i just need the "tee" part and the sending unit thats showen above

[BornSticky]

im sure napa and lordco would both have them, not so much canadian tire and even if they did the people there wouldn`t be able to get it for you cause they are retards!

[Nd4SpdSe]

I had to go to a hydraulic parts/fitting store to get mine.

[mazdaspeed23]

does anyone have a sending unit for sale? I cant find any shop around here that has them. their telling me they only sell them with the gauges. i have a gauge, i just need the unit to change it from the idiot light to the gauge.. my gauge is 0-100psi an 12volts

[Ryan]

they're matched to your gauge. They aren't universal. Need to find out the characteristics from your stock sender. 10-80ohm is pretty common for a VDO or something similar.