[T3] 73 T-3 oil temp?

William Jahn willjahn975 at gmail.com
Sun Sep 5 20:15:40 PDT 2021


I thought it wouldn't hurt to remove the pressure relief valve and just
check the condition to see it the piston might be sticking since I do have
the temp sensor from VDO that fits there and I do have new pistons and
springs just in case they are German parts I bought long ago. I haven't
looked at them since 1997 when I rebuilt this engine. I removed them from
the stock engine and they came out easily. I just used one of the new
pistons because it had some scuffing . I have no idea how many miles that
engine had. Course I installed them with the engine out and with it sitting
bottom up yet it came be done in the car plus I got a complete German
gasket set so I have new sealing washers , I used the old ones from the
engine I rebuilt because I didn't have internet back in 97 and no one had
them that I could find local.

On Sun, Sep 5, 2021 at 7:52 PM William Jahn <willjahn975 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've been using SAE 40 Valvoline since it gets pretty hot here. I have the
> VDO temp sensor in the sump plate in place of the drain plug . I've read
> from a few places that installing one in the pressure relief  port does a
> better job . The tests were done with a candy thermometer down the oil
> filler pipe and they read the same. I still realize these gauges and
> senders are not real accurate. The engine does not have more than 45k miles
> on it since I rebuilt it.
>
>  The only thing that makes sense to me is to be idle on a really hot day
> for a good hour. The cooling fan is not moving enough air simply because
> once the rpm's were up it cooled down pretty fast.
>
>  I've never had that happen before. Drove it today and it was still pretty
> hot 91F. When I started it the oil pressure was 50 PSI. I drove a 1/2 mile
> and by that time the oil temp was just maybe 130F and the pressure was 40
> PSI . When the temp is at 180F the gauge will read 15 to 20 PSI at idle. I
> drove to Costco 6 miles one way and the oil temp was a bit above 180F then
> on the way back there was a parade I didn't know about and just to get back
> to a highway I could get home on traffic was so backed up most of the time
> was spent sitting at idle and with two lanes of cars side by side bumper to
> bumper I'm sure the air temp was a good deal hotter than 94F in fact by
> that time once I got home it was 97F.
>
> On Sun, Sep 5, 2021 at 7:23 PM Keith Park <topnotch at nycap.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> Quite a few varibles, what is your oil viscosity?  Oil light with 10W30 is
>> not as bad as with 25W50,
>> Still, its an indication of a worn engine, but not necessarily worn out.
>> The sender is also part of the equation, the good german ones come on at
>> 5PSI,
>> The cheap ones don’t come on till there is virtually no pressure.
>>
>> When the engine was new, the idle with 30wt on a hot day at about 12psi.
>>
>> 180 oil temp is cool
>> 220 is starting to get warm
>> 230 its getting warmer
>> 240 its time to back off a bit, that’s hot, although it will tolerate that
>> for some time with good oil, but these are
>> OIL temps, not the temp of the block, or the cooler, which is what you get
>> with a sender screwed into anything..  its heat sunk on the block
>> And is 20-30 degree's cooler than the actual oil around it.
>>
>> Keith
>>
>>
>> Topnotch Restorations
>> topnotch at nycap.rr.com
>> http://www.topnotchresto.com
>> 71 Squareback  “Hothe”
>> 65 Notchback  “El Baja Rojo”
>> 93 RX7  “Redstur”
>> 13 Subaru Outback "Blendin"
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: type3-vwtype3.org <type3-vwtype3.org-bounces at lists.vwtype3.org> On
>> Behalf Of William Jahn
>> Sent: Sunday, September 5, 2021 12:52 PM
>> To: type3 at vwtype3.org
>> Subject: [T3] 73 T-3 oil temp?
>>
>> I just have VDO gauges oil pressure and oil temp. I know they are not dead
>> accurate . Yesterday I got stuck in traffic because of a parade . The oil
>> temps driving to my destination never got over 180F . Yet on the way back
>> I
>> was stuck in traffic barely moving for over an hour and the oil temp read
>> just under 220 F the oil light would go on at idle , it was 94 F air temp
>> .
>> If I put the auto trans in neutral the oil light would go out . I checked
>> the oil level later and was down 1/2 quart . Once I was able to start
>> moving
>> the oil temps dropped .
>>
>>  My question is since at idle the cooling fan is not moving much air plus
>> the 94 F was probably higher because of all the traffic other cars
>> generate
>> heat.
>>
>>  I've never had this happen before being stuck just the engine idling for
>> so
>> long. I've had this oil light on after a freeway run on a hot day came to
>> a
>> stop the oil light would be on then as soon as I hit the throttle it went
>> out.
>>
>>  Is it just that the cooling fan at idle is running slow the reason the
>> oil
>> temp would climb? Because the temps did drop back down to about  190F
>> once I
>> was moving yet I didn't get to drive far enough to cool it back down to
>> 180 F where it normally is. I would also place it neutral when this
>> happened
>> to get not only the voltage to stay up it's 1,000 RPM in neutral and 850
>> RPM
>> in drive plus hoping the extra RPM would help bring the temps down. It
>> didn't, I had to be moving at least 35 MPH and kept it in 2nd gear so the
>> RPM's were about 2400 RPM.
>>
>> William
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