Oil Temp Sender Location

[Lowell W]

My car has a Canton oil pan, with the fitting for the oil temp gauge in the front of the pan. During normal driving, I seldom see oil temps higher than 60°C, with water temps up to 80-90°C. Driving in the rain, the temp gauge drops almost to the pin.

I've checked my temp gauge with boiling water and it reads almost 100°C (close enough) with the entire sender immersed in the boiling water but if I pull it out so just the end of the bulb is in the water, it reads about 95°C.

I've come to the conclusion that, while the gauge/sender is capable of "near enough" accuracy, the location of the sender on the front of the pan and the location of the bulb in a pool of oil which is being cooled by air moving past the pan, are causing false low temperature readings.

The remote oil filter is ahead of the engine, connected to an adapter on the block with AN-10 lines out and back. The simplest solution seems to be to add a street Tee in the line from the adapter to the oil filter and locate the oil temp sender in the side leg of the Tee. With a Swagelok stainless 1/2" street Tee ($50+, BTW!), it will be a nice, simple installation, with the tube tucked in close to the block but I'm wondering whether I'm overlooking a better way to do this.

Has anyone had a similar problem? If so, is there a better way to solve this or somewhere else to plug in the oil temp sender?

Thanks,

Lowell

Edited for misspelling