The stock oil VDO oil temp guage in the console of my '74 has no indication of tempreture in degrees.

Only the " safe zone " and the, scary... red... zone.

When the needle reaches each letter in "TEMP", what does it translate to in approx degrees?

I run at " M " when I'm " ON IT ".

T=?
E=?
M=?
P=?
Red=?

trekkor

if its hitting the red zone its too damn hot

depends on the gage, some have bigger red zones than others, I belive the later cars, running hotter for smog reasons, had a smaller red zone.

I calibrated mine, I used a digital thermalcouple thatwas calibrated to a traceble standard, and got he oil good and hot by drinving. I then stopped, and stuck in the TC wire down the dipstick hole to the bottom of the sump, inches away from the stock sender location, and then marked my gage as the temps dropped. found that the middle of my gage read 95 C (203 F). 1/4 inch further right from middle (top of pointer) read 112 C (234 C), and about 1/2 inch to the left of center of gage was 80 C (176 F)

Each gage might be different, so best bet is to make a calibration mark.

If no thrermal couple to cross reference, next oil change, pull the sender, and set it in a pan of boiling water by heating water in a camp stove under the car, and putting sender in it. That will at least get you a 100 C (212 F) mark. Then with a glass thermometer in the water, watch it drop, and mark off 90 C, and 80 C, and 70C etc... Use a permanent marker on the gage glass, but be sure you are looking head on, and line up with the pointer when you mark the gage glass.

Note that what I found was the gage is NOT linear in scale, as it gets hotter, the pointer needs to move less.

(ie the 80 to 95 C measure was 1/2 inch of pointer movement for the 15 C change, the 95 to 112 C change (a difference of 17 C) was only 1/4 inch of pointer movement) do not exprapolate the temps above what you measure!!!


dave

T= (T)o Cold
E= (E)verything is Great
M= (M)ight be getting hot
P= (P)robably hot
RED = Get out Check book!

Sorry Couldn't help myself....

If you can somehow get a copy of the February 1990 issue of Porsche Panorama, there is an technical article on 914 high oil temperature by Bruce Anderson that answers all your questions. It even has pictures of each of the 914 temperature gauges showing them calibrated in degrees.