Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums Accessories Oil Pressure Gauge

A quick glance down? except for Brent's who seems to have put a little more thought into the placement of his gauge than others .How often do you take your eyes off the road and quickly glance down? Seems like you could easily miss the pressure drop until too late. I think the op gauge and the oil temp gauges are mostly there just to look cool.

Nope I use mine. I put alot of thought as to placement of my gauge.I regularly glance down. But I look at things I am rideing past and pretty girls and cools cars and bikes I pass and if you say you don't your are not being honest. Plus you miss part of the idea of being out and going places.

Well, you have your opinion and I have mine. I'm not gonna fall into a game of one upsmanship with you.

whatever

Thanks for the input guys. The placement is a problem with me. If I look down I get in the bifocal range and can't see a darn thing. Thus placement is a problem. Brent's seems to be the way to go, but the price is a little steep. An then again as someone once said maybe I could build my own, of course I don't have anything to work with except a drill press and file. Guess I could make it out of wood and paint it black......would be "cool"

The only part you couldn't get or do would be the banjo bolt. You could mount on the handle bars or that area easy enough witha proper size P clamp over even a hose clamp if you weren't going for looks. The rest you can get very easily. Maybe Brent or BP would sell just the banjo bolt. A machine shop would make one for you but then you run back into cost. Basicly braided stainless break lines and fittings with AN3 connections and an AN3 to pipe adapter for the gauge. J&P has it all and they even have the vynal coated stainless break lines and chrome fittings.

My bracket I made above isn't hard to make but you would have to look down to read the gauge.

Crusty, I have both banjo bolts. If you decide to roll your own, drop me a PM. I haven't decided if I want to keep it up on the stem, or go back to the lower position... The stem is WAY easier to see, but the lower is just cool lookin.

Benny sounds like a project, but I must confess I don't even know what a banjo bolt is, but then again it's the challenge. I look at it this way, half the time we are fixing things that don't need fixing so why not try the pressure gauge. But as I said I really don't know what I need, haven't seen a pic of the installation.

Hey Skip,
This is Trumpy. I have hooked up a gauge and I show about 70-80 at idle COLD and about 20 idle WARM. When warm the oil pressure picks up quickly with throttle. I did have a weeping problem with my gauge BUT managed to get it to stop by carefully centering the brass washers!

Trumpy

Trumpy, centering those washers is KEY!!

Crusty, the banjo bolt is basically a hollow bolt with holes in it that goes into the case. The pressure gauge oil line fitting goes around that and it allows it to see the pressure. Basically pics up a "signal" of the oil pressure. The one we are talking about is right on top of the flat part of the motor JUST behind the cylinders. Under the carbs. The stock one gets replaced with a taller one to accomodate the stock oil line and the pressure gauge line.

I know I'm over explaining it for now, but if you want to go down the roll-your-own road, or whatever, let me know, I've got some spare parts.

Dogg33

I believe that.

If they don't make what you want, build your own.

Isn't that how hot-rodding, custom cars and bikes started?

Like the idea of the gauge down there, I got a basic hand tools and willingness to give it a try. Just need the part number for the oil gauge.

Shoot me a PM e-mail.

+1

Frank

Ian,

I believe what is being said here is more about how you post. You've been on here since 2/2/07 or about two and a half months. Dude, you have almost 1200 posts!!! Averaged, that's 16 posts a day!!

In the history of the Internet, there are VERY few people who can state that and 99.9% of them are known as post whores (those that post solely to pump their post count). In no way am I saying this about you. Again, it's about HOW you post.

Most people post something and that's it. There are occasions where those same people will re-post and there are less occasional times where those people post a lot more to a thread. But it's occasional. A perfect example is this thread. Do you know that you have 24 of the 55 posts!! The next closest is about 6....

I know I explained about Quick Reply and Reply. Reply is a lot more user friendly in that you have all the options like adding URLs, Images, Quotes, etc. as well as being able to see what you are replying to. Perhpas you can give it a try?

What the hells wrong Phil, nothing better to say. Ya prude!!
Ha ha ha
Trumpy

Crusty,
I took a ride after a 6 week break in riding (weather), the oil was full but 2 blocks from the house @ a stop sign I held my hand over the idiot light to shade it and the light was on (no knocking or extra noise) this is my reason for wanting a gauge.
I don't think I did any damage but who knows, I'll know better once I get a gauge hooked up.
Now even with a gauge, if you are not watching all the time by the time you notice a drop in pressure damage could be done.
About the only way I can think of to ensure not doing damage, is to hook a kill switch up to an oil sender unit that kills the engine once the pressure drops to a set pressure.


By the way

Thanks for all the replys

I know it took me awhile to get around to posting the gauge set up I made but here is a shot of it on Wendys bike.

Nice Dog!!

Ian,

Looks very nice!

I have a question however. Is the oil line/banjo bolt location the only place the gauge can be connected?

Gerry

I really don't know. I just pulled it from there since the idiot light pulls pressure from there.

I would like to drift the who said what on this a bit back to pressure if I may. I need clarification so I will make an assertion. Tell me where I am wrong.

I really don't think when warm anybody on a air cooled P-twin under normal load is running 80 PSI. If you are, you have a blockage of some sort. The internal relief valve opens before that sending oil directly back to the sump and not up. I think at 70 PSI the relief kicks open. That is huge pressure for an air cooled motor. On our air cooled you have a pump that pushes to the heads just gets it there then it drains back via a port next to the cam chain path. Its very simplistic, not meant to push hard pressures. Is it possible your gauges are not suited to this bike? Is it possible I am very wrong? prolly the 2nd.

Ron,

I'm just trying to understand if there are alternate locations for possibly mounting an oil pressure gauge. By that I mean alternate attach points on the engine itself. In particular there is a bolt located on the crankcase nearer to the oil fill that has my curiosity up. But never having been into the engine I'm thinking that the banjo bolt location is perhaps at a position directly donwnstream from the oil pump. Anyway I'm sure someone has been down this path before but unfortunately I must be true to my nature of always complicating things.

In a nutshell I was wondering what that bolt does and if a simpler fitting could be attached there.

Gerry

I think the banjo bolt is a good location because it is in the defined flow path of the oil where it is important to know the pressure. You can't really just take ambient crank case pressure... it isn't telling the story you need. Know what I mean?

As for pressure, I definitely run above 60.. I'll pay more attention tomorrow.

I definately run 80 at speed when warm so does Wendys bike and my friend Tom. Tom has a different gauge than me so I doubt it's the gauge. I am idleing at about 30 give or take when warm. I idle at 80 when cole and choke on full. No blockages at all been doing that since day 1 on Wendys bike and mine since I got the gauge for mine finished.

Okay, I surrender. The shop manual says as mentioned before 40 PSI at 4000 rpm. It also indicates that the oil pressure relief valve is set to trigger at 73 PSI. Once the relief valve goes you are dumping oil straight back to the sump. Benny, I think you are on the right track. Its where you measure that matters.

I will stick with my idiot light.

Steve, I am running Brent's oil gauge right now. It's a fine piece of work for sure! Even the early one I have. It's a snug fit with America bars, but doable. No light, you are right, but visibility is great. I'm sure you could wire an LED into your dash to point at it if you need to, I know someone did that for a different item...

Yes, Matt has instructions on adding a led for a clock located in the same spot as Brent's gauge Matt's dash light

Ian, that's a very nice job on the gauge set up. If my thighs weren't so darn fat it would work for me, too!

Dog33,
Real nice job! Looks great.

I will say this, the banjo bolt that Brent supplies is better and doesn't have as much play wuth the washers so its easier to lign up. Just get it finger tight, lign up the washers, and tighten it down, works fine.

A remote electric gauge with sending unit would be illuminated. I'm going to start researching that. Shouldn't be rocket science, automobiles have had them forever. Could put it in the tach hole and put the tach up where it should be.

Lorenzo, you can use an automotive type sending unit and any type eltric guage, or you could use Dakota Digital guage and sending units also there are several other companies available........Angelis

Just installed my new gauge. I had some interesting ideas about were to connect it , but settled on the traditional double banjo bolt method. I made the banjo bolt, bought the braided hose from a local custom shop, had the small flat black angle mounting bracket from some other project. Total investment about $70.

Does anyone know the pressure (perhaps by spring or piezoelectric switch?) that the stock oil light sender is set to initiate the low oil pressure warning signal/current at?

Nick,

I thought about mounting it there using a tee and keeping the switch, but went the standard route instead.

I was surprised at the pressures I'm seeing. At idle I've seen 18 to 25 PSI. With choke 80 PSI on the button. Running through the gears it has been up to 85 + PSI, but seems to hover around 80 PSI.

I'd be curious to see what the pressure reading would be at the switch location though.

Gerry