Not necessarily the best way to go. Both ammeter and voltmeter is the best, and here's why. With the voltmeter you know only one thing, what your system voltage is. Why is that not enough? Because it doesn't tell you the condition of your battery, or of your diodes. Voltmeters existed back when ammeters were all the rage, so why didn't they use them? Because it was important to know the amount of current flow in the system. When you know the current you know whether you are charging the battery or discharging it. If your diodes go bad, you can have full system voltage and be discharging. If a cell shorts in the battery you can have normal voltage and be charging at system capacity into a dead cell. Both bad things. We've now bred a generation of the uninformed who know nothing about electricity, but here's a clue. Voltage is the pressure, amps are the volume of flow. Only if you know both can you really know the condition of your electrical system. But, most people are perfectly happy with a voltmeter, or with an idiot light. In my opinion they are more or less interchangeable. Heck, the brightness or dimness of your lights or the effectiveness of your horn will tell you as much as a voltmeter. Hence the old standby ammeter in the gage cluster. JB
That is true, but if you hook up both the gauge and the idiot light (as shown in post #6) you have two warning systems. Can't go wrong with two ways to tell if you are starting to have trouble :TU: The way I look at it, if this had happened to me while I was on the road, there would have been no way to for me to stop the oil from pissing out of the engine. At least with a electrical gauge the oil isn't going to come out of the engine.
well my only problem right now is finding the parts to make the t off for the idiot light and oil pressureguage. imho i could deal with out it being hooked up as im not goin to be flying down a track at 100+ mph and will being doing alot of city/town driving were i am currently. plus i have completly exhausted my funds for the moment so imm gonna work with what i got
Just go to NAPA, all you need is a weatherhead tee , something like this: https://www.napaonline.com/Catalog/CatalogItemDetail.aspx?A=WH_C3759X16_0214479552&An=0
are oil pressure guages required on a 350?? :laugh: :laugh: (only guage we use is a tach that can go to 7500) :grin:
Well no idiot light or gauge is required. It is something good to have, that way you can see what your oil is doing, or your Alt is doing, your water is doing, or what ever else you hook a gauge to. I'm setting mine up right now with new gauges. I'm going to have: oil presure, water temp, voltage, transmission temp and a clock. You can go with anything, I've even seen diff. temp gauges, blower gauges, boost gauges and on and on. It comes down to what info you want and for what. Most gauge sets come with 3 gauges, oil, water, volt. This is were I bought my stuff through: http://www.egauges.com/default.asp
