Home made manometer

[Slowdown]

What fluids do people use in their home made manometers? I tried 4T mower oil (cos it was nice and red) and it's too thick. Water bounces around all over the place.

I thought perhaps 3-in-1 but that's almost clear (what can you colour oil with )

Parafin and oil mix, perhaps???

 

[nick.ct]

I think folk have used automatic transmission fluid in the past, red and runny but not as runny as water.

Nick

 

[Deleted account W]

Brake fluid so I'm told

 

[DrFarkoff]

ATF or PAS fluid

BUT Here's a BIG tip

Use the fine hoses from the throttle bodies up to the board the manometer is mounted on but get some sort of adapter to go up to 8 mm or 10mm internal bore

It's a real Bitch when you stand on the hose and accidentally pull it off the take off point while the engines running!!!

It sucks the damn fluid right up and through the engine a teaspoon of brake fluid will white ya out and PAS is not much better!

Going up in size at the board reduces the vacuum effect and gives you more time to move if ya do something like that

Also makes it easier to read and is faster for he fluids to settle if you have a big differential and one gets sucked up and was higher up the tube

 

[ianboydsnr]

What fluids do people use in their home made manometers? I tried 4T mower oil (cos it was nice and red) and it's too thick. Water bounces around all over the place.

I thought perhaps 3-in-1 but that's almost clear (what can you colour oil with )

Parafin and oil mix, perhaps???

mix red diesel with the red oil, or any diesel or even the 3 in 1 oil,

I used ATF fluid, because my son had left a bottle in my garage, you put one end of the hose in the oil and suck the oil up using the other end, then either flick the air bubles or leave it to settle for a few days.

 

[roddy]

use water but put a couple of sponge bungs in the ends of the hose you connect to the throttle bodys, stops all the boucing about

 

[squid]

I used some hydraulic oil as used to top up citroen suspension as it was lying around.

I used 3mm internal pipe from focus (£3 for a 15m roll).

It worked fine but does take a few second to settle when doing the air screws. Perfect at higher revs.

Thicker pipe might be worth trying as above.

And make sure both ends are on firm before starting up

I didn't suck it up but did get a load of bubbles but they cleared after by running the engine rather flicking away at the pipe.

 

[Stewart H]

+1 on the Citroen LHM, Power steering fluid is good too, the best I have heard was Soy Sauce

Stewart

 

[Bronco Billy]

Another tip .......

Use a foot or two of high pressure fuel hose (the stuff with woven material on the outside) from the throttle body and connect it to your clear pipe with car washer pipe connectors. This means the connection at the throttle body is better and you dont melt the tube on the headers all the time .......

 

[Greggers]

I used Castrol two stroke oil in mine .... absolutely no worries if it gets sucked into the engine... For tubing, I used blue aquarium air pipe and sealed the ends off with small ball bearings... to damp the vacuum, it was back to the fish shop for the small in-line air control valves. All worked a treat!

Greg