I was out in the yard today and found a Volvo Voltmeter and Oil Pressure gauge out of a 245. While walking around some more, I found another Volt and Oil Pressure and Oil Temp gauge in a 1990 Audi 100 sedan. The Audi gauges are VDO/Audi marked. Both Oil pressure gauges are 5 bar, but the Voltmeters are different. The Volvo starts ar 10 and goes to 16, the VDO is 8 and goes to 16. I guess my question is, can I use the VDO gauges in place of the Volvo ones in case they are broken? Does the Audi oil sending unit work with the Volvo gauge or the other way around? Or do I have to use the Volvo gauge with the Volvo sending unit???
Thanx for all the help guys
Patrick.

Yeah I've gotta agree here. The VDO gauges will probably interchange easily regardless of what they're marked. Even if they don't if you got them at a self service yard, you can probably sell them and cover your costs.

Also consider the VW Cabrio.. err the one with the full spelling of the word. It's usually got lots of VDO gauges right in front of the shifter.

But for most of the gauges, you'll probably want the Volvo sender or equiv... for the oil pressure sender you can order a generic one that meets the proper thread pitch and such, but the oil temp might require a Volvo specific part. For the voltometer.. if you've hit 10 volts your battery and/or alternator is/are likely on its/their last legs anyhow. By the time you hit 8V.. you'll be lukcy to be running =)

- alex

'85 244 Turbo | ~145.3k miles

I'd expect the voltmeter will work perfectly. System voltage is system voltage, nothing fancy there. The oil pressure gauge I would think would work fine as well, since they're all VDO senders and probably have the same internal parts. I'm sure the junkyard parts are cheap enough to try it and see how it goes. As for the oil temp, I'd guess you probably need the Volvo (VDO) oil temp sender/drainplug unit to get a correct reading. I have no idea where Audi put theirs on their engine. The gauge wiring and electrical requirements ought to be identical.
In case you weren't sure about it, VDO made all of Volvo's gauges as well. Don't forget to grab mounting feet or hardware from the Audi too, there are some different methods used for gauge mounting.
--
Rob Bareiss, New London CT ::: 86 244DL, 87 244DL, 88 744GLE, 91 244: 808K total