KrashDH
Top Post Dawg
Well, it finally happened.
In Oct of 2021, I ordered the Indigo New South gauges, and a steering wheel gauge column (2 place). Oil pressure, boost, and EGT.
The boost gauge shipped out pretty fast, I got it, but was waiting for the others because I wanted to wire up a clean, removable harness to the 3 gauges.
Back and forth emails for the first 6 months trying to figure out what was going on, and the only solid answer was "supply chain issues.
I gave up. About month ago, I received an email asking if I still wanted my order. Of course I did!
So I finally got to wire them up.
Let's start with the good...the final result!
Not too shabby. I did the "lay flat" vent conversion on my Golf, but had to go back to the original Golf vent on the driver side because I 3D printed an insert for the gauge to come. It took a bit of dremeling with a sanding disk to get a nice, snug fit with the gauge, which was ok.
I decided that I wanted to use Kerma's oil pressure adapter to eliminate any interference with the alternator plug being removed. I received it in about a week and it looked nice. But, I was disappointed that there were all sorts of shavings and burrs on the damn thing. I had to take care of all of that because no one wants the added lubricity of metal in their oil. Second off, they didn't provide the crush washers as shown in their image on the site. This ended up not being a good thing at all. Below is the thread I was asking about the adapter on there, if anyone had run it.
forums.tdiclub.com
So I let the car sit overnight, popped the oil filter cap to let any in the housing drain back, then installed the cap again so that the residual would hopefully come out slow. I was happy that only a little bit came out:
Now to install this thing. The best way to install this adapter is not to have the ports straight up, but tilted slightly towards the front of the car. This is to avoid the dipstick. This is where the adventure starts. Lucky for me, I have all sorts of copper crush washers, but not in different thicknesses! I had 2 different styles. I tried the combinations of thicknesses with those 2 and nothing would clock it correctly, no matter how I stacked them. What was needed was a different thickness. So I was able to wrestle the OEM pressure sender crush washer off the threads. For it to fit over the Kerma adapter threads, I actually had to file out the ID of the washer.
I also hit the sides with some 180 grit then some 300 ish to bring the surfaces back to new (I re-use crush washers all the time this way)
After trying different combos of washer for what seemed like forever, the closest I could get was one copper crush washer and the OEM crush washer, which put the ports facing the back of the car. So I still needed to come about another 90* plus, which mean removing material from my copper one (making it thinner).
I wanted to make both sides parallel, so I grabbed a large file I had, put it in a vise, and went to town sliding the washer and removing material on both sides. Then cleaning, fit checking, repeating. I probably did this 5 times before the clocking was good. I don't like stacking crush washers, so all of the threads I installed get a light coat of Gasoila.
Enough of that frustrating event, here's a couple images of the result:
Final resting place:
No leaks:
Also swapped out my catch can setup for Kerma's bling. Not sure it's gonna do anything special, but I got sick of the plastic one. Not having tubes run over the top of the valve cover is nice too. Eventually I'll be getting an OMI when they're back in stock.
I recently purchased a new OEM valve cover and installed, so no more leaks. Thankful for that:
Ok now for the sad part. I wired the gauges up exactly how New South said with the instructions. Boost is easy. It's a ground wire, and a power wire which goes to the dimmer.
The other 2 gauges have their various wires for the egt probe and sender unit, but they operate with a switched 12V to the red wire to power them on, then an orange wire goes to the dimmer. So switched 12v turns the gauge functions on and the needle sweeps, then with orange being hooked to the dimmer, that's when they should light up.
Well, that's not how they were working. I applied 12V switched, and the power came on (needle sweep) AND the LED came on. The dimmer was doing nothing.
So I troubleshooted by bench testing, 12V to red, LED and power for both of them. 12V to orange (and not on red), the LED should have lit up, but it does nothing. 12V to both at the same time, nothing.
So now I have 2 gauges that come on full brightness when the key is turned on and you can't dim them, and the boost gauge works as it should.
Reached out to NewSouth, they don't know what's up. The distributor/vendor that makes the gauges, they don't know what's up. So I've identified an issue with their new run of gauges. My OCD hates it. I'm temped to just wire the boost gauge to switched 12V for now so they all just stay lit, but I've got my wiring harness "correct". So after over 2 years of waiting and finally installed, there's something wrong with their gauges (PCB maybe?).
Latest email "It we be a while until there is a resolution". Here's to another 2 years
At least all my readings seem to be right so I can keep an eye on things now
In Oct of 2021, I ordered the Indigo New South gauges, and a steering wheel gauge column (2 place). Oil pressure, boost, and EGT.
The boost gauge shipped out pretty fast, I got it, but was waiting for the others because I wanted to wire up a clean, removable harness to the 3 gauges.
Back and forth emails for the first 6 months trying to figure out what was going on, and the only solid answer was "supply chain issues.
I gave up. About month ago, I received an email asking if I still wanted my order. Of course I did!
So I finally got to wire them up.
Let's start with the good...the final result!
Not too shabby. I did the "lay flat" vent conversion on my Golf, but had to go back to the original Golf vent on the driver side because I 3D printed an insert for the gauge to come. It took a bit of dremeling with a sanding disk to get a nice, snug fit with the gauge, which was ok.
I decided that I wanted to use Kerma's oil pressure adapter to eliminate any interference with the alternator plug being removed. I received it in about a week and it looked nice. But, I was disappointed that there were all sorts of shavings and burrs on the damn thing. I had to take care of all of that because no one wants the added lubricity of metal in their oil. Second off, they didn't provide the crush washers as shown in their image on the site. This ended up not being a good thing at all. Below is the thread I was asking about the adapter on there, if anyone had run it.
Kerma TDI Oil Pressure Adapter?
I just wanted to make a direct thread about their oil press adapter. Is anyone using this adapter? If so, I'm wondering if you could post your install picture. I'm wondering, after the port on the end is plugged with a hex plug or similar, how much room is there for the alternator plug? I just...
So I let the car sit overnight, popped the oil filter cap to let any in the housing drain back, then installed the cap again so that the residual would hopefully come out slow. I was happy that only a little bit came out:
Now to install this thing. The best way to install this adapter is not to have the ports straight up, but tilted slightly towards the front of the car. This is to avoid the dipstick. This is where the adventure starts. Lucky for me, I have all sorts of copper crush washers, but not in different thicknesses! I had 2 different styles. I tried the combinations of thicknesses with those 2 and nothing would clock it correctly, no matter how I stacked them. What was needed was a different thickness. So I was able to wrestle the OEM pressure sender crush washer off the threads. For it to fit over the Kerma adapter threads, I actually had to file out the ID of the washer.
I also hit the sides with some 180 grit then some 300 ish to bring the surfaces back to new (I re-use crush washers all the time this way)
After trying different combos of washer for what seemed like forever, the closest I could get was one copper crush washer and the OEM crush washer, which put the ports facing the back of the car. So I still needed to come about another 90* plus, which mean removing material from my copper one (making it thinner).
I wanted to make both sides parallel, so I grabbed a large file I had, put it in a vise, and went to town sliding the washer and removing material on both sides. Then cleaning, fit checking, repeating. I probably did this 5 times before the clocking was good. I don't like stacking crush washers, so all of the threads I installed get a light coat of Gasoila.
Enough of that frustrating event, here's a couple images of the result:
Final resting place:
No leaks:
Also swapped out my catch can setup for Kerma's bling. Not sure it's gonna do anything special, but I got sick of the plastic one. Not having tubes run over the top of the valve cover is nice too. Eventually I'll be getting an OMI when they're back in stock.
I recently purchased a new OEM valve cover and installed, so no more leaks. Thankful for that:
Ok now for the sad part. I wired the gauges up exactly how New South said with the instructions. Boost is easy. It's a ground wire, and a power wire which goes to the dimmer.
The other 2 gauges have their various wires for the egt probe and sender unit, but they operate with a switched 12V to the red wire to power them on, then an orange wire goes to the dimmer. So switched 12v turns the gauge functions on and the needle sweeps, then with orange being hooked to the dimmer, that's when they should light up.
Well, that's not how they were working. I applied 12V switched, and the power came on (needle sweep) AND the LED came on. The dimmer was doing nothing.
So I troubleshooted by bench testing, 12V to red, LED and power for both of them. 12V to orange (and not on red), the LED should have lit up, but it does nothing. 12V to both at the same time, nothing.
So now I have 2 gauges that come on full brightness when the key is turned on and you can't dim them, and the boost gauge works as it should.
Reached out to NewSouth, they don't know what's up. The distributor/vendor that makes the gauges, they don't know what's up. So I've identified an issue with their new run of gauges. My OCD hates it. I'm temped to just wire the boost gauge to switched 12V for now so they all just stay lit, but I've got my wiring harness "correct". So after over 2 years of waiting and finally installed, there's something wrong with their gauges (PCB maybe?).
Latest email "It we be a while until there is a resolution". Here's to another 2 years
At least all my readings seem to be right so I can keep an eye on things now
Last edited:
Ah crap, well thanks for the warning, haven't installed mine yet.
One day I hope to have the time to sit down and make sense of it though.