Electric Herms system

This is my first post. I started brewing four months ago with a extract kit. Immediately I made a Mash tun so my second batch was all grain. A neighbor helped me thru it. He then moved leaving me a lot of equipment, knowledge and motivation. I am on the home stretch on a 100% electric Herms systems working off of two PID controllers. I have a couple questions to whoever is willing to help. I have just received my two thermocouples. I am mounting one in the BK thru the bulkhead. The other i wanted to mount in a compression fitting in line with the heat exchanger. The 1/4" compression fitting is too small. I can only squeeze it in about an centimeter. Any suggestions? Also, I am having problems with the pump cativating. Any suggestions there?

Thank you in advance,
Blove

For mounting the temp probe at the output of the coil, I ended up soldering together pieces of copper and making a small chamber that I could screw it into.

My coil is connected to 1/2" copper pipe to make long arms that come up and out of the HLT. One of them is just "J" shaped 1/2" that ends in a garden hose conenctor. The other expands to 3/4" and has a Tee in it with the temp probe going through one part of the Tee and the downward partt of the Tee ending in another garden hose connector.

You can see it in this pic.




PS: You don't really need to put a temp probe in the BK unless you want to monitor the temp in the kettle as you chill. The temp probe there won't help you in any way with the actual boiling.