Originally Posted by barry12345

What brand gauges and approxamatly how many miles on them? There have been no known issues reported with the approximatly ten dollar chinese gauges from harbour freight unless yours are the first. There are at least a few in fairly long term service by now.

I just went back and studied the pictures. They look like the ten dollar chinese gauges. That is the two you show as installed not the earlier ones used for testing. Random defects almost seem out of the question as both failed.

You can get by well with just one gauge remember. That the internal leak overcame the sealed housing for the dampening fluid was also informative. I had suspected if there ever was an internal gauge leak occur it would have been contained. Unlike the mechanical oil pressure gauges on the 123 cars.

My last thought is on some of the installations a trapped air situation remained in the feed line on some perhaps. If this were the case no oil may have been in actual contact with the internal sensing mechanisim. I guess we wil just not know for some time about these gauges.

On the otherhand the same gauges with higher calibrations are meant for hydralic systems. The fluid is different would be the most likely variable. The prime suspect might also be inconsistant chinese quality but I am not certain of anything right now. It is a reasonable proposition that both gauges came from the same production batch as well.

I have also used the chinese gauges from our equivelant of harbour freight up here in Canada for other applications with no issues. That at the same time should not be considered an absolute defense of them. Funola for one runs with one in his cab I believe for quite some time now. Much longer than you have and I think he accumulates substantial miles.

Still sorry to hear of your experience yet thanks for posting it. Glad you liked the application though otherwise. To me it has always made sense. Why not blow the money for one cheap gauge from harbour freight and give it a test? If it develops an issue as well then it may need more investigation. The odds from what I have observed is it will not.

At the same time I am far from certain at the same time. If you still have the gauges in your possession we could compare the script of the backs of them.

This is meant to be funny. You could have gotten more expensive chinese copies of the cheap chinese gauges. Unfortunatly once again I suspect they are the same though.