An Oil Pressure Gauge for the Sammy

Given:  The Sammy goes through oil.  I think it's being burned and out the exhaust.  (No apparent leaks, which would be preferable)

So, a nearly religious daily pre-trip check of oil levels is required. 

Lately, she "seems" to steady at a bit above low mark on the dipstick.  Hmmm.

So today I added an oil pressure gauge and a Glowshift oil filter sandwich plate adapter that I bought from Amazon.  The Glowshift adapter went on with no issues, though I appear to have stripped one of the four port caps.

Glowshift 3/4-16 Thread Sandwich Adapter

The oil filter sandwich adapter goes between the oil filter mount and the oil filter, providing 4 ports to use for the installation of sensors. Onto one of the ports, I installed this kit:

Dorman 7-153 Kit.

I managed to pinch the tubing from the Dorman kit while feeding it through the firewall on the Sammy, dammit.  So basically I ended up using just the gauge pictured above.  The fittings didn't work right with the tubing I had left over from a previous project.  

After trying to "make it work", gave up and drove to the auto parts store and found this:

Bosch FST 7554

Sadly, the guys at the counter of the auto parts store had no clue, and I just happened to find the above kit while debating buying another oil pressure gauge to obtain access to the tubing/fittings kit that is included!

I had to remove the fitting that came with the Dorman gauge's kit (not compatible) and use the fitting that came with the FST 7554 kit, a little Teflon tape, and voila, a good oil seal!  (Before, large oil leaks!)

I'll monitor the adapter and fittings of course for leaks.  I am a bit leery of the oil tubing used and I'm not sure how durable it is.  I can see an electronic pressure fitting in the Sammy's future, but we'll see.

I went for a short test ride, the oil pressure gauge reports 50 PSI above 3000 RPM.  The Samurai's service manual says oil pressure should be between 42-60 PSI at 3000 RPM.

At idle, the pressure gauge drops down to around 20 PSI, which I believe is normal.

I'm hoping, the use of this oil pressure gauge, will give me a timely warning that the oil level in the engine has dropped too low.  I don't want to rely on the oil pressure sensor that comes with the Samurai, which uses an idiot light to tell you oil pressure is a problem.

NOTE: Though both the Dorman and Bosch tubing kits claimed 1/8 NPT threading, their components are NOT interchangeable!  The tubing for the Dorman kit was slightly narrowed in Outer Diameter than the Bosch Tubing!

Update: Had to bump up the idle from around 900 to 1100 RPM so that idle oil pressure was at least 12 PSI, at 900 it was barely 6 PSI!  Oh, and I found a 2.50 1/8-27 plug at Home Depot for the one I managed to strip while installing on the sandwich adapter, the OEM wanted $15 for two!