someone school me on gauges

U2SLO450

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May 27, 2006

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Apr 19, 2007

#1

• Apr 19, 2007

• #1

well as some of you know im about to do my hci swap and i want to get an oil pressure gauge and a temp gauge to go on my pillar. The only problem is that i dont know which gauges to get meaning that some of them say mechanical and some say electrical and then some say full sweep or something, i have no idea which ones i need or which ones will be the easiest to install so someone please school me. thankx

 

onefstsnake

New Member

Nov 25, 2005

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Northern VA

Apr 19, 2007

#2

• Apr 19, 2007

• #2

electrical gauges use a sender to send a voltage signal through wires to the gauge.

Mechanical gauges use a sender to send pressure/fluid through a hose to a gauge.

Electrical gauges are easy to hook up, but most only show a short sweep. Or the difference between each line on the gauge is greater than on a full sweep.

Mechanical gauges are supposedly more accurate and respond quicker to changes.

But I use short sweep electric gauges.

Short Sweep:

Full Sweep:

 

bigcahoona

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Apr 11, 2005

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Chi Town

Apr 19, 2007

#3

• Apr 19, 2007

• #3

onefstsnake just said it all. I also run electric short sweep.

 

S

Sicarius428

Active Member

Jan 6, 2004

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Apr 20, 2007

#4

• Apr 20, 2007

• #4

I run electric for ease of install and are plenty accurate for my purposes. Mechanical are suppose to be more accurate and also work with the key out of the ignition so you might want to keep that in mind.
Kevin

 

HISSIN50

"How long does it take to get help in here?

15 Year Member

Nov 29, 1999

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Apr 20, 2007

#5

• Apr 20, 2007

• #5

Sicarius428 said:

I run electric for ease of install and are plenty accurate for my purposes. Mechanical are suppose to be more accurate and also work with the key out of the ignition so you might want to keep that in mind.
Kevin

Click to expand...

I very much agree. Electric gauges these days are plenty accurate.

FWIW, In pillars I generally run electric OP gauges (easier than running copper or braided line) and mechanical temp gauges.

This does lend to having a mix of sweeps but it doesnt bother me.

Good luck.

 

SuperStang83

Founding Member

Mar 21, 2001

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Boyertown, Pa

Apr 20, 2007

#6

• Apr 20, 2007

• #6

I run electric, and they work good. They were very easy to install, and I suck at anything to do with wires.

 

S

smr

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Nov 14, 2005

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Nor*Cal (Vacaville)

Apr 20, 2007

#7

• Apr 20, 2007

• #7

most new electric gauges are very accurate. If you go with electric cheap gauges you re gonna get what you paid for. I run a mix of mechanical and electric gauges. i am running the autometer ultralite II and they only offer some of the gauges in electric and its better imo cause the installation is easier...

 

U2SLO450

Member

May 27, 2006

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Apr 20, 2007

#8

• Apr 20, 2007

• #8

onefstsnake said:

electrical gauges use a sender to send a voltage signal through wires to the gauge.

Mechanical gauges use a sender to send pressure/fluid through a hose to a gauge.

Electrical gauges are easy to hook up, but most only show a short sweep. Or the difference between each line on the gauge is greater than on a full sweep.

Mechanical gauges are supposedly more accurate and respond quicker to changes.

But I use short sweep electric gauges.

Short Sweep:

Full Sweep:

Click to expand...

what exactly is the difference between short sweep and full sweep? the pics look the same to me

 

HISSIN50

"How long does it take to get help in here?

15 Year Member

Nov 29, 1999

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Apr 20, 2007

#9

• Apr 20, 2007

• #9

U2SLO450 said:

what exactly is the difference between short sweep and full sweep? the pics look the same to me

Click to expand...

The Jedi mind tricks are working nicely!

Take one more look at those two gauges. The top gauge is electric. The needle can go from ~10 o'clock to 2 o'clock.

The second gauge is mechanical - the needle goes from ~7 o'clock to 5 o'clock.

 

JChalfan

Member

Nov 27, 2002

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Bellevue, WA

Apr 20, 2007

#10

• Apr 20, 2007

• #10

U2SLO450 said:

what exactly is the difference between short sweep and full sweep? the pics look the same to me

Click to expand...

EDIT: Looks like hissin types a little quicker than me... beat again by 4 minutes...

Look harder.

Seriously though, if you look at how far the needle travels, on the short sweep it's probably about 90 degrees. On the full sweep, the needle can travel about 270 degrees.

If you look at the full-sweep fuel gauge picture, you can see it's pretty easy to tell the difference between, lets say 30psi and 32psi. If you crammed all those little lines into a 90 degree gauge sweep, the space between each line would be much less, and you couldn't get as accurate a reading.

Jeff

 

sweat90lx

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Apr 11, 2007

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Waycross, GA

Apr 20, 2007

#11

• Apr 20, 2007

• #11

I changed mine to the pillar yesterday. The hardest part was changing the sending unit for the oil pressure, I took off the power steering pump to change it. The water temp. was a breeze. I used mechanical gauges because the full sweep looks better to me.

 

Busted07

I need my gorilla to be about an inch longer.

Nov 15, 2005

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3

0

Apr 20, 2007

#12

• Apr 20, 2007

• #12

I just installed Stewart Warner Oil Presure and Water Temperature mechanical gauges. I put them in the A/C vent, although it was a little bit of a pain to run the tubing, at a glance, (to me anyways) you can tell where the needle is alot quicker than on an electric (non-full sweep) gauge. and to me, its worth the extra time it takes to install them.