EGT Gauge for CRD

[Ray!]

I decided to install the EGT Gauge in the Patrol after I went to a wrecker and found out what the dump pipe actually looked like and figured out that the conversion would be pretty easy without having to remove the pipe etc. At first I was going to buy a dump pipe assembly from the wreckers and modify that and then just swap over the pipes once the work was done; but that wasn't necessary.

The first part involves removing the heat shield from the turbo. This wasn't initially as easy a task as I thought, with some of the bolt seized pretty tight and not much room to swing a spanner. First move was to WD40 all the bolts and within minutes, they just tweedled off. One word of note to those who tackle this task, you don't need to remove the bolt that sits just under the rubber hose where the water pipe goes (centre right under the air-con pipe in the first photo).

The shroud was a bugger to wrangle out from its resting place, but once the right moves were made, it came out fairly easily and replacement wasn't too difficult either, though I removed about a 5mm sliver of metal from either side where it curves around the vacuum diaphragm and that made subsequent installation and removal very easy).

This is the EGT kit that I bought. It consists of the pyrometer probe, control box and digital display. The kit also came with two types of fittings for the probe, a standard nipple that could be welded onto the dump pipe and another nipple already welded to a screw clamp (next photo). As I didn't want to remove the pipe for welding of the nipple, I used the provided clamp.

This is the nipple and clamp positioned over the dump pipe while I worked out the best location before drilling the required hole. What you can't see in this photo is the other side of the nipple. It isn't flat, but has a tapered nozzle that sits inside the drilled hole and provides a tight seal what the clamp is tightened (otherwise this setup would be useless).

The next part involved measuring and locating the right place to the hole in the heat shield and, as I'm the world's greatest at measuring things, the hole naturally was completely off on the first attempt. That's the reason why the shield came off around six times, as I had to keep filing away until the nipple was fully exposed and things could be attached.

This is the final setup with the nipple and Swagelok in place (and the hole looking somewhat meaningful). Everything bolted back nicely and it was now time to feed the probe through the firewall.

There's one thing that I wish every vehicle manufacturer would do and that's install a bloody big grommet, somewhere easily accessible, so that you don't have to fight every inch of the way to pull through cables etc. The probe added extra complexity, as it was a rigid piece and had a right angle to boot. At first I was somewhat worried that I'd damage the probe pushing it through the only reasonable opening in the Patrol, but then I thought, it's going to be living in hell for the rest of its life, so poking its way through some rubber and insulation is hardly an effort. So the final assembly went fairly easily, once I'd managed to work the probe through the firewall.

This is the gauge display and location. It was very easy to install, as all that was required was to connect the wires from the control box and gauge display together, route one to earth and one to switched power and all was good. It's very easy to read where I've located the display and quite unobtrusive in the overall scheme of things; I like things to be understated and almost unnoticed when I put something in any of my vehicles.

The gauge works well after a short test drive and I'll be really interested in what temperatures I get while with and without the camper. The thing I already noticed even in the short drive was how quickly the temps rise and drop, doing 60kmh in overdrive raises the temps compared to doing the same out of overdrive.

The EGT Gauge that I bought was from: http://www.dynotunen....?idproduct=134

Cheers

Ray