Oil temperature sender adapter


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bdento59
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Oil temperature sender adapter

Post by bdento59 »

Some of you may have seen the oil pressure adapters being fabricated and sold by TAS Classic motorsports http://www.tasclassicmotorsports.com/se ... unt/Detail. This adapter replaces the OEM oil passage cap 90040-422-000 near the top of the engine.

While this is an ok place to mount an oil presure gauge, it's not such a great place to locate an oil temperature sender. The lower front oil sealing cap 90043-422-000 is a much better place for this, as many of you already know. However, this cap is brittle and requires deftness to tap w/o destroying it. To make matters worse, it is NLA from Honda.

Recently, George Dillaway was kind enough to donate one of these caps to me for my oil temp gauge installation endeavors. What I've done in the meantime is loan this sealing cap to TAS so they can copy the design and offer it for sale to the CBX community. I'm hoping that it will be priced similarly to the one at the URL above. I will keep you apprised of their progress on this project.
Bill Denton
Yardley, PA
wkdenton@verizon.net
Lazarus Cycleworks, LLC
We Breathe New Life into Old Bikes

Don #6141

Post by Don #6141 »

George gave me one too. It's not all that brittle - I carefully centered a small drill in it and then drilled it and tapped it for the 1/8th pipe threads to match my oil temp sender . . . . there's plenty of meat in it to get several threads. If you use the correct tap drill and take your time tapping it (clean the tap every turn or so) you'll have no trouble tapping it without breaking it. If you get it perfectly centered, a deep socket will fit over the sender and on to the cap, allowing you to easily reinstall it in the engine. As you can see below, the sender hex is just slightly smaller than the hex on the cap and when they are both aligned, a deep socket will fit over the sender and onto the cap hex

3276

Honda may not sell them, but there are hundreds of them around - Every engine came with 8 of them ;)

3123

I mounted the temp gauge where the voltmeter used to be and replaced the voltmeter with a computerized one - That's the LED for it there in the blank panel next to the high beam indicator

Don

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bdento59
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Post by bdento59 »

Don #6141 wrote:George gave me one too. It's not all that brittle - I carefully centered a small drill in it and then drilled it and tapped it for the 1/8th pipe threads to match my oil temp sender . . . . there's plenty of meat in it to get several threads. Don
Don,

Regardless, I thought it might be nice to have purpose built adapters made of brass or modern ductile aluminum for all to use. Personally, a cap that's only thick enough for "several threads" is a little too iffy for me. Also, the metal that these OEM caps are made out of are very brittle, as you can strip the 18x1 threads oh so easily...
Bill Denton
Yardley, PA
wkdenton@verizon.net
Lazarus Cycleworks, LLC
We Breathe New Life into Old Bikes

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bdento59
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Post by bdento59 »

Don #6141 wrote:I mounted the temp gauge where the voltmeter used to be and replaced the voltmeter with a computerized one - That's the LED for it there in the blank panel next to the high beam indicator
Don, can you tell me where you got the computerized led voltmeter apparatus? I'd like to do the same thing as you on the instrument panel. TIA
Bill Denton
Yardley, PA
wkdenton@verizon.net
Lazarus Cycleworks, LLC
We Breathe New Life into Old Bikes

Don #6141

Post by Don #6141 »

bdento59 wrote:
Don #6141 wrote:George gave me one too. It's not all that brittle - I carefully centered a small drill in it and then drilled it and tapped it for the 1/8th pipe threads to match my oil temp sender . . . . there's plenty of meat in it to get several threads. Don
Don,

Regardless, I thought it might be nice to have purpose built adapters made of brass or modern ductile aluminum for all to use. Personally, a cap that's only thick enough for "several threads" is a little too iffy for me. Also, the metal that these OEM caps are made out of are very brittle, as you can strip the 18x1 threads oh so easily...
I guess I should explain 'several threads' a little bit more

As you know, pipe threads are tapered. I ran the tap in about midway and then tried the sender - It still had 3 or 4 threads showing on the topside, so I ran the tap a little deeper and then tried it again. Eventually, I got it where the sender screwed in just about flush (no threads showing from the outside) and that's where I left it. I don't recall seeing any of the threads showing from the inside, so you could take 'several threads' as being just about all of them ;)

As to screwing it back into the engine - If you start it with your fingers, there's no danger of crossthreading it . . . . putting it back in was quite simple

I suppose if you could buy a brass or billet aluminum one for $5 or less, I'd be interested, but there's really not a thing wrong with just tapping the original Honda piece either

Don

Don #6141

Post by Don #6141 »

bdento59 wrote:
Don #6141 wrote:I mounted the temp gauge where the voltmeter used to be and replaced the voltmeter with a computerized one - That's the LED for it there in the blank panel next to the high beam indicator
Don, can you tell me where you got the computerized led voltmeter apparatus? I'd like to do the same thing as you on the instrument panel. TIA
I bought it from www.customdynamics.com - They have all sorts of neat goodies for bikes, and this meter is among the neatest :D

Here's the direct link: http://www.customdynamics.com/LED_batte ... _Mount_LED

Hard to beat for $25

Don

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