Route for oil pressure pipe

[Sparkrite]

Very worryingly I have discovered that the nylon oil pressure pipe on my tcs has been cut/rippped and the end just plugged with a screw. I can only see it from the engine block and about 2 or 3 foot in length.  This leads me to think the engine ran out of oil and was ruined following the problem with the pipe. 
I would like to know what is the original route for this pipe to the oil pressure guage .

[EuropaTC]

I guess the most important thing is, "does your oil pressure gauge work ?". You should get some sort of reading if you spin the starter, especially if the plugs are removed to give a higher crank speed. If the gauge works and you're getting reasonable pressure then I'd not worry so much.

The oil pipe goes from the block into the central spine at the vertical closing plate where the handbrake/heater & coolant pipes enter and exits along the top of the tunnel. I think it was behind the dash but it's been so long that it could equally be at the point where the heater/choke cables go into the tunnel, under the arm rest. 

What I do know is that when I started to lift the body off my chassis I had undone everything apart from that oil pressure pipe and it's amazing just how strong they are 

If yours has broken then either someone was incredibly ham fisted or it's not been secured properly and has vibrated/worn through against something else, either in the tunnel or engine bay. My guess would be a missing rubber grommet somewhere.

Brian

[Dilkris]

Sorry Sparkrite, not really a positive input to your post but on the same subject:-
How many people have moved away from the "hard wired" pressure gauge to that of electric? (ie Pressure sender in the block wired to gauge in the dash?). It is something I intend to do with my TCS but would be interested to know if there is a reason why this shouldn't be done.

[Sparkrite]

As you said Brian, I thought it might go into that closing plate in the chassis, but the pressure guage cant yet work as its disconnected due to the cut pipe.
 I can imagine its not going to be much fun trying to re route a new pipe without alot of dismantling though.

[JR73]

It would have been very unfortunate to have lost all of the engine oil through that small broken pipe. More likely that the pipe was broken (rubbing etc) and the gauge stopped working, when they looked to solve the gauge problem the cheap, easy and lazy fix was to plug the end of the pipe and leave the gauge not working.

It’s not an overly easy job to do but aside from the access being a bit of a struggle it is possible to replace the pipe. Use what is left of the original to pull the new one through (sounds like the longer length is maybe from the dash into the tunnel?) and with the centre console removed you should be able to feed it back into the engine bay.

[BDA]

IIRC, there is a hole with a grommet in the backbone behind the dash for your oil pressure tube.

[jbcollier]

Dilkris asked about switching from mechanical to electrical gauges.

I did the reverse and fit a mechanical oil pressure gauge to an S1 which originally came with an electrical gauge.  As a matter of fact, my oil pressure, oil temp and water temp gauges are all mechanical.  Electrical gauges are slow-acting.  They ease their way up and ease their way down.  Not very useful in a crisis situation.  Electric gauges are have far more problems than mechanical gauges.  My whole extended family doesn't have enough fingers and toes to cover the number of times I fixed broken and/or inaccurate electrical gauges.  In my 35 year career, I've changed maybe five or six mechanical gauges.

Yup, they are a pain to fit.  Yup, you have to be careful and protect their signal tubes with grommets and sleeves.  Yup, you have to coil metal tubes to protect against vibration.  BUT, they just plain, flat-out work.  And they respond quickly and consistently to changing engine conditions.  If you want to know what is happening NOW with your engine, use mechanical gauges.