i picked this up a while back. i just love these vintage stewart warner gauges with the curved gl*** and crescent pointers. i stuck the bulb on this one in boiling water and it reads fairly accurate as it went just past the 210 mark. i'm working on collecting a complete set of these. here's my problem. the gauge has oil temp printed across the face. stewart warner water temp gauges of this style run into the hundreds, if not millions of dollars. and a lot of times, the capillary tubes are broken and they need repair which can cost another couple million. i have plans of using it as a water temp gauge, even though it bothers me some. if i run the bulb to the pan, is there some direct relation between water temp and oil temp? when it comes to water, 180 is good, 200 is ok, 220 is hot, 230 or more and i have a problem. is there a mark on an oil temp gauge where one has cause to be concerned? what's a normal operating temperature of oil? or should i pay no mind to the voice in my head and run it as a water temp gauge?
why not Boil some Oil in a Pot & see what it goes to ! that you can compare the Different or Call Steward Warner & ask them if it would be allright to use for Water Just my 3.5 cent
Run it as a water temp gauge, nobody will know but you. And maybe you'll find a cheap water temp gauge down the road to replace it with. JohnnyA Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
A temp gauge is a temp gauge. I have a meat thermometer for testing meat to see if it's rare, medium ect. I use the same gauge in hot oil when I'm frying fish or chicken or turkeys in my outside fryer. The only thing you need to know using it as an oil gauge is at what temperature does the oil become too hot. Best way to answer this is look at gauges that measure oil temps and see where they drawl the yellow and red lines.
boiling water will test it fine,you see if it moves,they don't care at all what there taking temp of,and it work or not,there is no inbetween,just use it if it works at all.
Are you asking is it OK to run an oil temp gauge for measuring water temp or using it instead of a water temp gauge? The first has been answered, the gauge works with water or oil. If you are asking the second; do not use in lieu of water temp, you need some kind of water overheating indication be it an idiot light or whatever. ***uming a proper cooling system, oil temperature will vary more than water temperature with engine load and almost always responds at a much slower rate. It would be hard to guess what "normal" operating oil temperature might be, but general consensus seems to set a maximum limit of sustained temperatures of not over ~270-275 degrees F.
I have ran an sw oil temp guage for coolant I pried off the bezel took black nail polish to cover the word oil then re crimped bezel
Well, not quite. A rectal temperature reading is generally 1 degree Fahrenheit (about 0.5 degree Celsius) higher than an oral reading. As far as using the oil temperature gauge as a water temp gauge, no problem. The only thing to remember is that, on the oil temp gauge, it's a pretty small needle deflection at the lower end of the scale between a normal operating temp and one that might be too hot. Notice how small the deflection is between 200 and 240, vs 300 and 325. A water temperature gauge will give you that large needle deflection in the normal coolant temp range.
I had thought of the same thing, but his is a smooth bezel, so I'm not sure the removal & reinstallation will be as easy as one that's crimped around the back. I'd hate to experiment with a nice gauge like that.
Do not attempt to take the bezel off, you'll just end up mucking the whole thing up. They're extremely hard to remove. When you replace the bezel and gl*** with cheap repop stuff it never looks as good as the original stuff. JohnnyA
Johnny has a good point. i was running some cheap Sun Pro gauges for a couple years and have slowly started replacing them with SW gauges as I find one for a good price and that works decently too. Jay
and i thought the only difference between rectal and oral thermometers was taste. i know it's ok to use to measure water temp.sheesh i was slightly concerned about the scale(amount of deflection) i was asking if there was any correlation between water and oil temp in an running engine. after thinking about it, i guess not. an engine can have an oil temp of 270 and the water can be 160 if the t-stat was stuck open or the water can be way hotter if the stat was stuck closed. so it's not safe to run only an oil temp gauge and have the ability to gauge how the engine is operating. i'll run it to measure the water temp until i can afford the correct gauge.
Your water temp and oil temp should be close to the same in your water cooled engine. I was actually talking to someone about that the other day. In an air cooled engine like say a V-dub. porshe or harley 200-210 drgrees is common on a hot day or sitting in traffic, in a water cooled engine one should expect the opil to run pretty close to the same temp as the coolent temperature. now as for useing it for a water or oil temperature gauge as has been mentioned it measures temperature period and it would be the same. Now here is something that i ran onto a couple of years back, my mechanical temp gauge when i got into the Pusher on a hot summer day was reading about the same as the oputside air temperature, it bothered me until I figured out that my truck was parked out in the sun and had been all day so it stands to reason that the temp in my radiator would be the same or close to the ambient temperature. Ok just a side bar but no charge for the extra information.
how moisture resistant are these old stewart warner gauges. i'm running them in a roadster with no protection. does that sound stupid?
Nope not a stupid question at all. you have to remember that the little rubber gasket is about 50 years old, maybe a little silicone around the bezzle is not out of the question and it can be done with clear if you are careful and not show unless you get right down and inspect it.
Just dang it man! I don't think I would have told that one! Just how many rectal thermometers have you tasted? I'm not going to ask what they taste like, I'm sure it's not chicken! YUCK...............
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