Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi all
I'm not sure if this is the right place for this but after (stupidly) spending a day in the rain on a 10 (5hours) minute job of replacing the the capped off oil pressure gauge pipe. I jubiluently fired her up ( after resetting the timing then spending another 2 hours trying to get her to start before realising the low tension wire to coil had come off
After all of this the gauge did not work at all, I can see that the oil has reached the gauge through the new pipe. it is a Smiths combined oil pressure water temp gauge. The water temp works fine. Has anyone any tips for repairing/fault finding on these units.

Have you opened it up? You'll find that both gauges are of the same design, a curved flat tube that "uncurls" with pressure and this movement moves the needle. You don't report an oil leak, so the curved tube should be fine. The next thing to look at is the gear on the needle stem that is driven by the "uncurling." Compressed air can be used to watch the tube move. The capillary tube for the water temp will limit movement of the gauge to do any bench testing. Make sure you treat that well. A working temp gauge drives the price of a used gauge. Finding a working pressure half would be in any gauge where someone cut the capillary.

Hi Jaekl
Thank you for you reply I did try a air compressor today and found the gauge to be working which let to further investigation that unearthed a blockage in the (new) nylon pipe, thankfully this was near to the gauge but behind the dash, with a cut and hot water to soften the pipe the gauge connector was soon installed and fitted to the pressure gauge which promptly gave a reading of 80PSI.
From what I have read regarding the combined gauges the water temp is the black arts and far above what I would ever try to do.