Hello All,
Coming up from Melbourne along the East Coast, the van developed high
temperature and oil pressure. No red light though.Only info through the
gauges. I have recently installed SS cooling pipes and this was not a
problem in Melbourne. The water temperature gauge is nicely on the left
side, never over the mid-line. My gut feeling is that I might have an air
lock just around the oil cooler. Does this make sense? In the past long
journeys, my gauges indicated fine but now it is indicating well over the
mark. By the way, I am using Mobile 1. Any suggestion?
Cheers,
Theo
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Hi Theo - it would be unusual for the van to suddenly develop high oil pressure on a jaunt down the highway. Problems are indicated by loss of pressure.
Since both gauges are simultaneously reading high, it sounds like an electrical glitch.
I'd be cleaning the earth connections between the between the battery and the frame, the engine and the bodywork, and the chassis and the transmission just for luck. [It's a good idea to do this occasionally anyway, especially if operating in a corrosive environment, like beach driving]. While you're at it, remove the glovebox and clean earth connections on the brown wires that are connected in a circle to the bodywork near the passenger's door hinge.
A can of contact cleaner and a Dremel-style tool make the job easy.
I remember reading somewhere that most electrical problems can be traced to dirty connections or a bad earth.
If that doesn't work, try switching various electrical circuits on and off with the engine running to see if it makes a difference. Do it slowly, one switch at a time, to give the gauges plenty of time to react.
I once had a car where the gauges slowly climbed after I switched on the heater fan, and subsided when I turned them off. It varied according to the fan speed setting. Don't ask me why, but when I cleaning every connection I could find, the problem disappeared.
It was a pommy car though. The crest on the owner's manual said "By Royal Appointment", and I soon learnt that it would only start if I tugged my forelock with proper subservience before respectfully requesting it to proceed out of the driveway.
Cheers, Roger [beetle] Bayley.
mmmmmm ........
Back when I studied this stuff thirty years ago, good quality multigrade engine oils could handle up to 120 degrees before breaking down and losing viscosity. They have probably improved since then.
If you can feel the hoses on the oil-cooler when the engine is running you might be able to tell if their is an air lock or blockage. [Watch your fingers with the pulley though!]. The inlet hose should be cooler than the outlet. The safest and most accurate method would be to use a thermo probe. My local muffler and radiator shop has one - they just point the laser dot onto a component for an instantaneous digital readout.
Hang in there .... Roger.