59 oil dipstick length

[Victor Ingram]

How long should the 59 "1600" motor dipstick be? to register correctly?

[Max Handley]

Victor this is an orig. dipstick from my 59 Cab. It measures 8 7/8 " long from top to where it bottoms out on the top of the tube. Hope this helps.

[C J Murray]

A long time ago when I was even dumber than today I bought a 356 with a VW dipstick installed. It was short about 2 quarts of oil overfill. Yes, I put 6 quarts in and yes that caused leaks and smoke. Your engine should be full when you have 4 plus a little quarts depending on your filter situation.

[Victor Ingram]

Cj, I wouldn't be too hard on yourself. I had the same experience (twice) in the same "night" before the Boston Parade. My friend and I worked through the day and night to prep the car for a full on concours. We installed the motor, put oil in and ran it down the road, returned from the short drive to find oil blown all over, everything. Dropped the motor, cleaned it up and repeated the process. Oil all over again.
We finally realized "wrong dipstick", we felt like a couple of dipsticks when we were done.
Did finish 2nd in the parade though.
Young and dumb I guess!!!
p.s. hence the reason for the question

[Victor Ingram]

Max,
Thanks for your help. Part of the reason I asked about the length is because I have a Stork temperature gauge in the car. As you can see the stork dipstick is quite a lot shorter. Which brings me to an additional question!
If the end of the dipstick is not in the oil is it reading true? I tried to adjust the length but it cannot be adjusted. The temperature at the gauge is around 200/210.
Should I get a car thermometer to verify the reading?

[C J Murray]

I like 200-210* for best oil performance.

[James Davies]

Hi Victor, the handle on your Störk probe is installed backwards.

Also, the dipstick-type Störks were for the 2-piece case pre-A motors. Porsche switched to a different probe, a screw-in type separate from the dipstick tube for the 3-piece cases in 1955. Don't know if that makes a difference, as I haven't measured whether the oil fill level is the same on the two cases. I would think the level would be the same and your dipstick probe should work fine.

[Victor Ingram]

Thanks James, I realized the same thing after I posted the picture. The motor in this car is a 59, it was exchanged at the factory. I have a copy of the original Kardex with the KD number scribed onto the Kardex. That motor still resides in the car. I can only assume that Porsche did not want to "re-configure" the dipstick because of the gauge in the dash so they left it as is.
Just a guess that the factory was being frugal!
Do you think the gauge is accurate given the dipstick does not sit in the oil?
Back from the garage and turned the handle around, I thought just maybe it would give the dipstick a little more lenghth and it did, but not enough to sit in the oil.
Thanks

[James Davies]

Hi Victor, is the handle preventing the probe from going in all the way? Swapping it around should help that. Regardless, lots of hot oil is getting sloshed around in the case when the engine is running, so I don't think it's a problem that it is shorter or not sitting in the oil when the motor is not running. The screw-in probe on the 546/2 cases is even shorter. And these probes are pretty sensitive. If you put it in boiling water when prepping your tea, you'll see the gauge shoots up to boiling pretty quick.

Interesting about the factory motor swap! I bet that explains it. When Porsche swapped the '59 motor in at the factory, they also swapped in a dipstick type gauge. The original '55 case would have add the threaded insert for the temp probe (and a Störk gauge with the dipstick probe to match), but the '59 case does have this threaded insert. Instead of drilling the case, they installed the earlier type of Störk gauge with the dipstick probe.

I think Porsche had a batch of these dipstick Störks (or Moto-Meters) anyway, as the pre-A speedsters at the end of '55 had the 616/1 and 616/2 engines. Anybody know if those engines had the 546/2 screw-in probe or the earlier dipstick probe?

James

[Victor Ingram]

My car had a build date of 7/27/55 the original 1500 normal motor was number 35408, I don't know if that helps with your question if it had a screw type probe or not. The original tranny was also swapped out at the factory in 1961 and paired up to the 59 motor. Both motor and tranny still reside in the car and are documented.

[James Davies]

Interesting Victor! Yeah, I would suspect motor 35408 originally had the screw-type probe in the case, but I'm not positive. Others would have to chime in. I do know that some '55 3-piece case motors came with dipstick oil temperature probes, not the screw-in type, but I think it was the very early ones.

[Craig Richter]

My 546/2 #P34750 has the oil temp probe (a short one) in the front of the case, right where the oil is coming out of the cooler. I think the temp here is the most accurate about what's going direct to your bearings. But then they changed that probe location again...and again...and again...

[James Davies]

Some of the early '55 cases had the probe located behind the fan shroud on driver's side. Here's one with the threaded sleeve already in the case (red arrow). The threaded probe from the Störk screws into the sleeve.