bigbadbob76 wrote: Maybe just don't treat them as accurate instruments, but more of an indication of abnormal conditions.
You'll soon get to know what's normal for your gauge and sender location.
I'm thinking of putting an M14x1.5 to M10x1 adapter in my sump plug location and sticking a cheap gauge sender in there, yes it will read lower than true oil temp and not respond quickly due to the sump sinking heat but in your own words "who cares".
I think you're right about using the gauge as an indicator of abnormal conditions. I have a sender in the sump plug location:
And I also have a Mocal thermostatic sandwich plate which directs my oil through a big front-mounted cooler.
The sandwich plate thermostat is set to 80 degrees, and my oil temperature gauge reads a steady 80 degrees ALL the time. Is that coincidence, i.e. a number of inaccuracies cancelling each other out by luck? Maybe, but I don't care - when it reads 80 on the gauge it means all is well.
As a nice side effect, I've noticed my water temperature needle is a lot more stable than it used to be - sits in the middle over the LED all the time - and I have the feeling that cooling the oil separately has taken a lot of the load off the water cooling circuit.
Oh, and I have an oil pressure gauge next to the oil temperature gauge, fed from the pushrod sender location, and as a consequence of the stable and moderate oil temperature the pressure is always nice and high.