I have gone through 3 sending units since I built my turbo motor last year each lasting between 2 weeks-3 months.
I have two connected brass fittings off the oil pump w/ white threading tape on each joint. Each fitting holding the stock pressure sensor and the other the sending unit.
The autometer sending unit has only one wire on the back of it.. is that the signal wire? the threaded part on the unit acts as the ground right? Would the threading tape cause it to short and keep killing my units?
Should I wrap a wire that is grounded to the block around the unit to make sure it has a good ground?
Oorrrr would I be better off ditching my electric gauge for a mechanical ?


Modified by Maxcapacity at 6:59 PM 3/25/2008

 

I remember I had contacted autometer about my oil pressure sending unit either not working, or working on and off. Long story short, there was an issue with the unit and the body itself had to be grouded. What I did was just take a hose clamp, clamped a wire around the entire body, and grounded that wire and it's been perfect since. Try this first as it'll take no time to try it.

 

mine keep breaking too. about to put in my 3rd in the past year

 

I mentioned about wraping a wire around the unit(add a clamp etc..), that is grounded to the block. You say you have had no issues since, I will definately try that tomorrow after i buy ANOTHER
Been tired of seeing a dead gauge for the past 4 months now..

 

Wrapping a wire around the sender?? That sounds a little ghetto to me. I just installed a oil pressure sending unit on my friends car and what we did was take a little sandpaper and scratched up a section on the sender and then soldered a wire right to the sender and grounded accordingly. Now THATS how you ground a oil pressure sender!

 

If I remember right, the instructions say not to use thread tape/lock on the sending unit. I can't remember though I hooked mine up as the instructions stated and seven months later, the guage is still running strong. Never had to ground it......

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GSROWNSU &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Wrapping a wire around the sender?? That sounds a little ghetto to me. I just installed a oil pressure sending unit on my friends car and what we did was take a little sandpaper and scratched up a section on the sender and then soldered a wire right to the sender and grounded accordingly. Now THATS how you ground a oil pressure sender! </TD></TR></TABLE>

My clamp is also holding the bracket in which holds the sender under my intake manifold. Ghetto, but effective!

 

if you used steel braided line to connect the sender, or install it directly to the engine there should be no reason to connect an additional ground to it.
the problem I see mostly with autometer units is the connector breaking off.

 

also what series of gauge are you using? looks like the full sweep electrical units are pretty nice. the older style short sweep gauges always looked a little junky to me.