> But at least its
> better than the little
> green light coming on to tell you the engine's toast?
Well, I would agree if it were only that faint green glow off to the side;
which is easily missed IMO. But early US-spec Stags also have a large red
light directly in front of the driver, which is hard to miss.
I do like having a gauge (which is why I went to the trouble to add one).
But in my experience, a gradual drop in pressure is almost never the
problem, except over many thousands of miles of operation. And even then,
the light coming on at hot idle will notify you that it's time for a rebuild
(if you didn't know it already) while the engine is still quite functional.
For example, if you are low on oil, the oil pressure oscillates between
nearly full pressure and nothing; which a big red light is more likely to
communicate than a gauge, IMO. Likewise, a sudden failure (eg the pump
shaft shearing on my TR3A) is probably communicated faster by something that
grabs your attention, rather than waiting to be periodically scanned.
First time that big red light came on while I was driving my (early US-spec)
Stag, it scared me silly! Had it just been the oil gauge needle bouncing
off the stop, I likely would not have even noticed it. And the engine was
not toast at all; just wanted another quart of oil when I reached my
destination.
The TR was also not particularly the worse for wear after it's loss of oil
pressure. I did change the rod & main bearings since I had to drop the pan
to fix the oil pump; but they were not damaged by lack of oil. But it was
the change in engine sound that alerted me, rather than the oil pressure
gauge.
BTW, it was also fairly easy to change the Stag's green light to yellow,
which is at least somewhat more likely to be noticed. The green is just one
more of those things that leaves me wondering "What were those guys
thinking?"
Randall
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