• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

TR4/4A Oil gauge line

Share this page

JimTR4

JimTR4

Senior Member
Country flag
Offline
Hi all,
At long last I've gotten around to replacing my oil gauge line with a steel braid flexible one from Ted at TS Imports.
Has anyone fitted one of these?
I'm still a bit concerned with the supplied adapter which is longer than the equivalent from the old copper line. It means that it doesn't really fit snugly as its slightly longer than the threaded male connector on the gauge itself.
I spoke to Ted and he says that putting PTFE tape on the gauge connector will make for a good fit. I do also have a leather washer.
Anyone done this, does it seal perfectly ok?
(I had a leaky set up before and having fitted a new carpet and dash I don't want a repeat performance!)
Thanks for your thoughts,
 
Last edited:
I had a small leak recently, but fortunately that's one of the easiest gauges to get out and back in. I installed a new line from Moss and I seem to recall it didn't take a leather washer. Now I want to check; I have a spare leather washer sitting in a drawer. Did you try your setup yet?
 
The Moss catalog does list one, 435516, but I'm not sure it was on all the TR4s.
 
I installed one of these lines and since I didn't read the instructions I assumed that it would have a compression seal like the old plastic line. To my dismay, oil leaked all over the radio. Fortunately I hadn't put the carpets in.
Teflon tape is the suggested method of sealing the line. I did it and no problems since
 
The original Smiths gauge lines used the leather washer with flat-faced fittings. I don't know Ted's kit but other use NPT fittings that do not use a sealing washer. As mentioned above, put a good wrap or two of Teflon tape on the gauge's male threads, then attach the tube fitting. You will be fine.
 
dklawson said:
The original Smiths gauge lines used the leather washer with flat-faced fittings. I don't know Ted's kit but other use NPT fittings that do not use a sealing washer. As mentioned above, put a good wrap or two of Teflon tape on the gauge's male threads, then attach the tube fitting. You will be fine.
Click to expand...

Another possibility is BSPT which will mate nicely with NPT except for a slightly different pitch, causing a leak.
Tom
 
TomMull said:
Another possibility is BSPT which will mate nicely with NPT except for a slightly different pitch, causing a leak.
Tom
Click to expand...

You are correct, 1/8 BSPT will easily thread into 1/8 NPT and the thread pitch is only different by one thread per inch so they are close. Though in theory tapered pipe threads should seal without help, they seldom do. I have never seen an installation that hasn't used pipe dope or Teflon tape.
 
Back
Top