Club 80-90 Forums

Hi all,

Just looking for a bit of advice. I have a 2.0 Aircooled (1981) I don't appear to have any temp warnings or gauges. What's best to install? Oil temperature gauge somewhere or are there other options?

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

Nothing, Aircooled engines are designed to run at a wide range of temperatures depending on the ambient air temperature, gauges don't tell you much.

If you feel you have to fit something then oil temp and pressure.

Will I be fitting either to my CU engined van when done. No.

I fitted a rev counter and oil temp (sump) in mine.

The rev counter is useful not only for seeing what speed the engine is at but also impending ignition failure - the tachometric feed is from the coil and when running on original VW coil and distributor it started misreading, instead of a normal steady 2,500 it swung between 2,000 - 4,500 at a steady throttle. 2 days later the distributor failed (hall sensor). couldnt get repair parts so went Powerspark dizzy/coil route.
5 months down the road and similar erratic indications occured just before coil failed. Coil failure (actually two failed at approx 100 miles) seems to have damaged the Tacho as it reads about 7,000 so have disconnected it for now. I may reconnect a new one or swap it out for oil pressure.

Oil temp as stated elsewhere covers a wide range of temps - running upto Camerjam a distance of about 120 mls for me and the temp sat at 120 - 130c which everyone was telling me is way to high and I have a problem, I dont think so - the ambient air temp was 34c so its obviously gonna be running hotter than usual as its Aircooled ???. This time of year and ran it a similar distance to Malvern and Ipswich and it was a steady 100 - 110.
Its useful for monitoring sudden spikes or increases in trend but dont get overly concerned about 'actual' running temps as they do fluctuate depending on ambient and driving conditions.

Fit them if you like gauges but theyre not essential and if your going to stress or worry about the indications dont fit them in the first place

Becky's Dad wrote:I fitted a rev counter and oil temp (sump) in mine.

The rev counter is useful not only for seeing what speed the engine is at but also impending ignition failure - the tachometric feed is from the coil and when running on original VW coil and distributor it started misreading, instead of a normal steady 2,500 it swung between 2,000 - 4,500 at a steady throttle. 2 days later the distributor failed (hall sensor). couldnt get repair parts so went Powerspark dizzy/coil route.
5 months down the road and similar erratic indications occured just before coil failed. Coil failure (actually two failed at approx 100 miles) seems to have damaged the Tacho as it reads about 7,000 so have disconnected it for now. I may reconnect a new one or swap it out for oil pressure.

Red 'change up a gear' dots on the speedo dial..

Becky's Dad wrote: Oil temp as stated elsewhere covers a wide range of temps - running up to Camperjam a distance of about 120 mls for me and the temp sat at 120 - 130c which everyone was telling me is way to high and I have a problem, I dont think so - the ambient air temp was 34c so its obviously gonna be running hotter than usual as its Air-cooled ???. This time of year and ran it a similar distance to Malvern and Ipswich and it was a steady 100 - 110.
Its useful for monitoring sudden spikes or increases in trend but don't get overly concerned about 'actual' running temps as they do fluctuate depending on ambient and driving conditions.

Fit them if you like gauges but they're not essential and if your going to stress or worry about the indications dont fit them in the first place

Dipstick test after a long up hill climb.....pull dipstick..touch...hot but not hurty, ambient air temp irrelevant.

Air-Cooled Bliss..

Cordialement,