What do you recommend; water or oil temp sensor?

[Cremulator]

Hey guys,
Following the very interesting thread where MB has been doing extremely thorough research into various different thermostats, I wanted to ask if people recommend monitoring the water or oil temp via a gauge in the cabin?
I've just completed installing EGT, boost and battery voltage gauges and was considering a water/oil temp sensor to keep an additional safe eye on things.

Cheers

[0-TJ-0]

Depends what you want to know really. Oil pressure would probably be more beneficial than oil temp imo.. or you can do both. You get an idea where your oil temp is at watching your oil pressure though.

Your oil temp will follow your water temp just much, much slower. Water temp is a good one to have.. but you'll find you stare at it all the time coz the things getter hotter than you realise.

[AB]

I would do both as well just because you can really.

I’m starting to get a collection of gauges over the years and I won’t lie, if I’m towing heavy loads up a big hill I spend more bloody time looking at gauges then the road!!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mudski]

I would do both as well just because you can really.

I’m starting to get a collection of gauges over the years and I won’t lie, if I’m towing heavy loads up a big hill I spend more bloody time looking at gauges then the road!!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Same. But now I just ignore the waters as much as possible. I know its going to get hot. My mechanic did advise me to NOT put in a water temp gauge when I did the conversion. Now I know why. I just stare at it all the time. Haha!

[Cremulator]

Cheers guys.
Sounds like the oil temp will be useful and not move around as fast/much as water temp.
The optional sensor for the redarc G52-BET (the gauge I have) does either water or oil.

Where does the oil sensor connect and what is the thread size? Or do you have to tap a thread?
The redarc sensors come in either a 1/8 NPT or 1/4 NPT thread.

[0-TJ-0]

There's a blank in the block on the LHS near the engine mount. Little hex bolt I reckon. Be gentle with it. That's where I installed my oil pressure sensor. I assume it'll be fine for temps too. 1/8npt from memory.

[MB]

FWIW I believe our GU wagons Redarc 3in1 (boost/EGT/water) is most invaluable. Audible alarm add on and settings makes for a lot less visual stressing too. Still currently relying on factory oil pressure light but one day when coin permits would like to add one extra 3in1 gauge onto the dual pillar pod too.
Reason I believe water monitoring is so critical on the 4.2 diesel engines is that Nissan’s factory gauge found having owned quite a few of them do have a deliberately designed in let’s call it a ‘dead spot’!
The factory needle will sit from my experiences found at a whisker below half way on a huge range of approximately 70C < > 105C IIRC.
If your 4.2L GU factory gauge is nudging towards ‘H’ it’s generally almost over and your system needs serious assessing or backing right off the peddle ASAP!



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Bidja]

IMO water temp and do a oil pressure gauge. Of course EGT and boost gauges. I have a scan tool via OBD11 port and can look at many (like my load and N-m visual). For me AFR would be an interesting extra.

[0-TJ-0]

FWIW I believe our GU wagons Redarc 3in1 (boost/EGT/water) is most invaluable. Audible alarm add on and settings makes for a lot less visual stressing too. Still currently relying on factory oil pressure light but one day when coin permits would like to add one extra 3in1 gauge onto the dual pillar pod too.
Reason I believe water monitoring is so critical on the 4.2 diesel engines is that Nissan’s factory gauge found having owned quite a few of them do have a deliberately designed in let’s call it a ‘dead spot’!
The factory needle will sit from my experiences found at a whisker below half way on a huge range of approximately 70C < > 105C IIRC.
If your 4.2L GU factory gauge is nudging towards ‘H’ it’s generally almost over and your system needs serious assessing or backing right off the peddle ASAP!



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Mine does the same, won't move until 105c. From the research I've done (many Googles) you don't need to stress too much until the factory needle starts to move anyway. As long as you take action when it does.

The aftermarket gauge is just excellent at showing the temp trend and gives you a bit more time to think about what you're doing imo.

[Cremulator]

Thanks everyone for the responses.
I'll buy the redarc temp sensor and most likely monitor water temp.
For anyone who has one of these sensors, is it a 1/4 NPT or 1/8 NPT thread that's needed? Or is the water one size and oil another size?

@MB, this might interest you; I spoke with someone at redarc and asked if it would be possible to add a switch between the positive cable across two sensors - effectively allowing you to switch between the water/oil/ambient temp sensors on the one gauge. He said that should work without a problem as each probe is calibrated.
I already have one of the redarc ambient temp sensors, so I might try this with the water temp sensor to increase the functionality of the gauge ;)

As for the scan gauge option, I now know that these don't work on the TD42, but I did pick up a scan gauge II before taking delivery of my car only to find out that I couldn't use it. Which was annoying.

The EGT/boost gauge is giving me about 8psi (maybe 10psi) factory boost pressure, but I haven't seen the EGT temp even make a reading at the 300° starting temp on the gauge. No load, flat terrain, revving high through gears but still doesn't seem to have gotten hot enough to register.

[MB]

Sounds great thanks Cremulator mate!
Apologies can’t help, I cheated and had our mechanic install the Redarc in our wagon. Their downloadable install instructions should be available online somewhere to check threads hopefully mate.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MB]

FWIW also Cremulator mate!
Our family TD42T near stock wagon and its current single 3in1 gauge was alarm bells set as per I believe hopefully solid advice found here and mechanics in agreeance as per below:
Boost: 12psi running (alarm 13psi -ish)
EGT: 575C alarm (Can hit this if we don’t drop down a cog labouring up heavy hotter hills)
(Stock TD42T’s really do need IMO now an intercooler/tune)
Water: 105C alarm (Unofficially to date have read 117C is max TD42 territory)

Water temp wise, I have on previous trucks without aftermarket gauges nudged well into ‘H’ and they tough survived time after time.

As O-TJ-O kindly mentions, the more in cab reactive information available is betterer IMO too :-)








Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Snail trail]

But of a dig here but new to forums and couldn't seem to find a post relating to temp sensors on the thermo housing,
I have a 1994 swb safari 24v
Factory manual tD42T
I have....3 sensors on the thermo housing..one on the upper rh rad tank.....
Have had no luck trying to trace cable to see what they link to.....I am handicapped when it comes to seeing colours which don't help.
My reason for asking is I plan to do some mods...but before I go to far into that I want to add a better water temp gauge, oil temp gauge , egt, and boost gauge. But the best spot to put the wtg is taken (angry face) if any one is able to inform me what they all do would be awesome! Then I can workout which one to delete