New York/Dart Sump Plug with oil level sender

[steveyhod]

Hi, has anyone repaired one of these plugs successfully?

The one from New York’s wire is broken off flush so nothing outside to solder to.

As far as I can deduce the float has a magnetic core which suggests the presence of a reed relay in the wee tube. When the float moves down the reed relay flips and so lights the light. Tests show that it does work.

So is it as simple as unsoldering the top of the tube; extract the innards and solder a new wire on the bottom?

Any thoughts?
Steve

Sump plug

Sump Plug.jpg (314.04 KiB) Viewed 632 times

[morini_tom]

It is as you say, but it’s not easy to do. I would probably not try going in from the top, I’d probably try digging the epoxy out of the bottom and splicing on. Disturbing the brass tube and solder risks having oil leaks in the future too.


To be honest morinis don’t use much oil and I’ve always found the level sender a bit pointless. Can’t beat the dipstick.

On my dart I added a pressure switch in the oil feed line, so for a while had both level and pressure lights. When I burst an oil cooler line on mine, the pressure switch alerted me to the problem a long time before the oil lever sender would have.

I also found that with thicker oil, when cold it would take a bit of time for the level sender to re-float if the bike had been parked a while (on sidestand) so always instilled a bit of uncertainly and mistrust in the oil level light.

That said, it’s nice to have these things working if possible. Mine is broken in the same way as yours now.

Let us know how you get on, maybe it’ll spur me into fixing mine too

[steveyhod]

Thanks Tom,
I will try the splicing route first. I did fix one many years ago on a Dart but that had a few mm of wire poking out.

Yes, I do like things to work if possible, and a bit of figglin’ can be rewarding.

Will go into battle tomorrow…….
S

[julianharty]

Steve,
you could have the best of both worlds: an oil light that lights up initially where you press a button to cancel it provided you actually checked the oil level with the dipstick before starting the engine

As you know, I have a New York, and as Tom knows - an oil pressure switch has proven far more useful than the oil level detection switch. Personally, because I spent around £2000 to have a 501 engine recommissioned after the previous owner had had the oil pump jam up (not his fault), I found an old fashioned oil pressure gauge the most trustworthy and reliable indicator. I finally removed that after several years of use because the pipe feed ran through the small void behind the LH rider's footrest and I was working in that area to fettle the gear linkage and decided to tidy things up on the bike.

This said, if you're really really keen then perhaps there'll be some NOS items floating around somewhere.

Good luck with your repairs

Julian

[steveyhod]

Thanks Julian,

I removed the epoxy and did manage to get a vey small bead of solder on the end of the stumpy wire and attach a bit of violet wire, the correct colour even. The float worked and switched correctly. I slid some heat shrink down to prevent the joint shorting to the brass plug and shrunk it up. Almost straight away the wire dropped off; there was not enough to make a robust mechanical joint.
Maybe I could reattach and fill with epoxy again which may mechanically support it

NOS is a possibility or even old, old stock but I have not seen a likely source yet. Even Mr Lucas drew a blank.

As a potential, where would one connect an oil pressure switch? I may consider that before digging in through the top of the little tube.

Cheers
S

[morini_tom]

I had the last NOS one that NLM had in stock, and to be honest the wire did not last very long even on that.

I also had a NOS dart fuel tap (real rarity) and the wires literally fell apart when I decided to use it last year.

So new, and properly stored may not be all it cracks up to be (pun intended)

Perhaps something like this could be repurposed? :

https://ebay.us/m/GtiobK

Regarding where to attach the pressure switch- on the dart it is easy as you can replace one of the oil cooler banjo bolts with a pressure switch banjo. On a New York or Excalibur (kokusan versions) the primary drive cases are un-machined in this area so you would need to either machine it or obtain (with difficulty) a dart case.

Julian added a pressure switch to his New York so worth finding out how he went about that

[julianharty]

My New York arrived with an oil pressure switch fitted so someone else did the actual drilling and tapping of the hole (unless it came from the factory like this). I've seen drawings of where to drill the hole in old issues of ATG (perhaps from when you were first a member of the club?) e.g. in a write up of how to fit an oil cooler or external oil filter.

As an aside, the pressure switches I've managed to buy over the years are all much lower pressure than Morini used originally AFAIK. They're marginally above 0 bar, IIRC between 0.3 and 0.7 bar. Whereas the oil pressure according to a mechanical internally damped gauge was solidly around 3 bar (42 PSI - which always made me happy as that's the answer to life, the universe, and everything ).

My other 501 engine has an oil pressure switch. About 10 years ago the previous switch started leaking oil slightly so I replaced the switch with one of the ones I've been able to buy over the years (they're generally sold for older European car models such as Citroen models and from established brands). I don't think I've ever worried about the actual oil pressure on that bike which I've been riding for decades.

The main reason the New York is special is because of the fiasco of the failure of an aluminium replacement for the 'flexible rubbery coupling' used as part of the starter motor drive. (Details in an ATG issue several years ago, perhaps before you rejoined the club?) The aluminium broke up and jammed the oil pump gear which led to the crankshaft being scrapped and various minor damage to the internals of the LH engine casing. That damage had knock-on effects to the oil pressure even after Benjy replaced the crankshaft and the oil pump. The oil pressure would drop close to zero at times (as measured by th e mechanical gauge). While this might have been the oil pressure relief ballbearing valve opening, we ended up replacing the LH casing with a spare (again with the threaded hole for an oil pressure switch) which resolved the occasional drops in oil pressure I'd experienced with the original casing.

[julianharty]

Tom,
Would you happen to have any of the knackered oil level switch assemblies? If so, it might be instructive to dismantle one entirely and then work out how to replace each part and seal the shaft into the sump bolt. I'm hoping the long brass shaft, the reed switch, and perhaps even the float, would be available from suppliers. If so, the guts could be cut out and replaced with new parts and these then epoxied into a cleaned up sump plug.

If I have one, I don't know where it's ended up in my spares. If I find it I'm happy to dismantle it and will post updates here.

[steveyhod]

Hey there,

Repair is completed. Refixed withe solder and filled up the dish with araldite. Seems much stronger, I will give it a bit of support with a cable tie to the frame will see how it performs.

Thanks all for wise counsel.

[3potjohn]

I have been following this thread because I had a side cover on my Coguaro drilled to accept a non existed pressure switch. There is instead a blanking plug. Due to an issue with that case I changed it for another( of the chromed variety). This has no such drilling. My instrument array fed via a Molex multi connector has an oil pressure warning light which does nothing.I find this situation irritating!