I thought I posted this topic already, but I cant seem to find it... (maybe a different site??)

Anyway, My oil pressure has been all over the place lately. Occasionally it will work fine without incident. Lately however it has been dropping and when I come to a stop at a light etc... it will drop almost all the way and the check gauge light comes on. So at idle its nearly at zero & at speed its around 20ish. (goes up when I accelerate to 20ish)

I put a mechanical tester on today & that seemed to read fine. Let it run for about 15mins with it on too. Hooked the sender back and dropped back to zero. So my question is...

When the sender goes bad will it occasionally work or just ***** the bed all together? Im going to buy a new sender next week and cross my fingers....

 

what do you consider *reading fine* if your having low pressure problems, get a better quality oil filter. i got an 89 i switched from champ to bosch oil filters and 5 30 synthetic and my oil pressures perfect. Before it was almost at 0 like you said.

 

With the mechanical gauge it stayed about 15-20 @ idle and when I gave it gas it would spike around 45-50. Thats what I would consider reading fine... That is compared to a zero reading with a check gauge light tho....

Btw, I been running the same oil & filters for over a year now.

 

then buy a new sending unit its probably shot. or gauge is bad. Cheap insurance buy an autometer op gauge problem solved. My stang has both the factory one and Autometer one hooked up and working just for insurance

 

Does anyone know if the sender will work intermitently, or do they usually not work at all when they go bad?

 

It can be the sender or the gauge going bad...even a bad ground or plug. I would change the sender first (cheapest) then work from there, if you feel the gauge is bad put a different (mechanical) one in there so you are sure of what the pressure really is...Tj

 

And your oil pressure is fine its 13 to 15 psi when idleing hot and roughly 10 psi per 1000 rpm roughly.

 

any update on your problem?
my jeep has been like that for over a year, replaced oil pump last summer
was ok for a week or 2 then back to same symptoms as you are having..
drops down to zero at a stop sign and motor starts ticking..

 

Not yet, I hit a poor streak & haven't had any money...
First thing im going to do is change the oil sender & do a oil change... Hopefully that will solve it.

After talking to a few mechanics they're making it sound like if its the pump, it will usually just go bad & not be intermitant.

As soon as I have a update I will post here.

 

Mine did the same thing its the oil pressure sensor. Mine got clogged and would read wacky low numbers or 0. Replaced it it was fine

 

I tried cleaning out the sender hoping that would fix it but no luck. I'll keep my fingers crossed when the new one goes in!

 

Try using 40 weight oil. A mechanic recommended that to me, and it still does it(same problem as yours) but it maintains higher for longer now. My oil pump checked out fine, and my sending unit was replaced too, and it still does it, so I use the thicker oil to be safe. I think it's my guage though, so I wish that was an easy fix, but I don't think it is.