i am wanting to order some gauges but i have a couple of questions, first of all is there a way to hook up the oil/water gauges without the adapters i.e the ac autechnics oil/water adapters? also, if you all have heard of the spw gauges? i saw them and they are not all flashy just simple and cost effective to monitor my vehicle. i appreciate the help guys just want to get these, have had my car heat up once and i just want to know whats going on with it. thanks

 

https://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=66108
About half way dow, fixerofallthings posts a pic of his setup. I pm'd him and he was very helpful. Basically, the stock oil pressure sender is located on the front side of the engine under the intake manifold. On the back side is a drain plug for the engine block water jacket. It is under the exhaust manifold. In both cases, the easiest access is from under the car. If you go up on ramps and remove the lower splash shield you can reach both points fairly easy.
I suspect that the stock oil pressure sender has the 1/8x28 metric pipe threads so you will need an adapter. They are readily available. You must make provision to continue to use the stock sender for the warning light, so you will have to put a tee in and then the two senders. That creates a second problem as most tee's are all the same thread, 1/8x27 SAE pipe thread. The new sender for the gauge will fit BUT the stock sender may or may not seal properly. I have encountered this problem as long as I have owned foreign cars. My 72 Toyota Corolla would not seal without an adapter, but several VW's seemed to work without an adapter for some reason.
For the water temp you just remove the drain plug from the block and put a senter in fot the gauge. I do not yet know what the threads size are on the drain plug but I suspect metric in the 10x1.0 mm or 12 x 1.5mm range. It mostly depends on the gauge sender that comes with your gauge unit. Some use the 1/8 pipe thread but most use 1/4 or even 3/8 pipe thread. That means another adapter. However, when fixerofallthings emailed me he did say that he was able to screw the new gauge senders directly into the factory threads with no adapters. He said he put the teflon tape on the threads and screwed them in. I honestly haven't taken the sender/drain plugs out yet to know for sure.
Hope all this rambling helps in some way. When I actually get my gauges and start the installation process I will post my results.

Walt

 

thanks, Walt. I PM'd fixerofallthings and he was a big help,

one hint I'd like to add: I have the VDO guages (uninstalled as of yet) and the installation instructions caution against using tee's / adapters and teflon tape. VDO sells a wide range of senders and have great instructions for proper installation and best results. again, these are VDO gauges, so I don't know if other brands suggest the same.

 

thanks yall! i knew my scionlife brothers would come through