From the life of a journeyman mechanic - the oil pressure gauge and its pitfalls
One of our customers took his car on a vacation trip to Spain. In the land of the toreros, he suddenly noticed an oil stain on his trousers, which was annoying. The cause of the stain was also annoying. The oil pressure gauge had sprung a leak, causing oil to drip down behind the dashboard.
With this damage, our Spanish driver went to a garage in Barcelona and asked for a remedy. They told him that they couldn't fit a new pressure gauge because they couldn't find one for this type of car anywhere in Barcelona. However, they did make an effort to seal the defective pressure gauge, and the customer understood. This work did not take much time. The pressure gauge was tight again, but did not show any pressure. This did not bother the customer, however, because he knew that the engine had sufficient oil pressure and he only wanted to drive without checking the oil pressure until he got home.
Once back home, this customer immediately rolled into our factory instead and had a new oil pressure gauge fitted. This work was completed quickly. However, we were quite surprised that the new pressure gauge did not show any pressure during the test run.
The matter seemed rather "Spanish" to us. It seemed unlikely that the new pressure gauge would be out of order. So the oil pressure line on the pressure gauge was disconnected again and the engine was started. It was discovered that no oil was coming out of the line. However, the engine had good oil pressure. This could be seen when the oil pressure line was loosened at the engine connection. The line was not broken either. So it must be clogged! And it was, with lead from Barcelona.
There, the oil pressure gauge was simply sealed by inserting a lead plug into the pressure line at the pressure gauge connection and screwing the line tight again. After removing this lead plug, the pressure gauge showed the oil pressure perfectly.
We had often heard that our Spanish colleagues know how to help themselves in practically any situation and are great at improvising. This was also the case here.
This text was taken from issue 26 of the 1959 edition of the magazine "Krafthand" .
