oldscsc Posted February 26, 2010 Report Posted February 26, 2010 Car was running fine, looked at the dash and all was normal. About a block later as I put it in park, looked down and it was showing CHECK GAGES. Alt was putting out 14 volts, full of fuel, running at 180..oil pressure gauge in the red on the low side. Wondering if I have an electrical problem because the gauge relies on a steady electrical signal from what I hear. Quote
WhatTheFehl Posted February 26, 2010 Report Posted February 26, 2010 Kind of sounds like the 98 S-10 we had at work. The Pressure gauge worked when it was cold. Once it warmed up, it acted more like a tach than a pressure gauge. At idle it would go to zero and the check gauges light would come on. Driving though it would be fine. It passed inspection like this, it was never low on oil, and it always had several hundred miles put on it every week, sometimes around a hundred a day (it had 216,000 miles on it when we closed). It always bothered me but it didn't have any other issues, the oil was always full, no milkyness or any evidence of a headgasket failure. Ultimately I think we decided it was a bad gauge or a sending unit. Quote
oldscsc Posted February 26, 2010 Author Report Posted February 26, 2010 Yeah but the S10 had a functional oil pressure gauge. This one is fake. It was still running fine and all though. Hopefully the sending unit got grounded out or something Quote
RobertISaar Posted February 26, 2010 Report Posted February 26, 2010 Kind of sounds like the 98 S-10 we had at work. The Pressure gauge worked when it was cold. Once it warmed up, it acted more like a tach than a pressure gauge. At idle it would go to zero and the check gauges light would come on. normal. when the oil is hot, the speed of the motor has a LOT to do with oil pressure. the oil pump displaces an exact amount of oil every revolution and higher flow in the same amount of area to run means more pressure due to resistance to flow. Quote
Night Fury Posted February 26, 2010 Report Posted February 26, 2010 Did you take a hard turn? The oil pressure in my 89 will drop to nothing with really hard left turns Quote
oldscsc Posted February 26, 2010 Author Report Posted February 26, 2010 Did you take a hard turn? The oil pressure in my 89 will drop to nothing with really hard left turns Nope, real easy turn. Under 15MPH. It was a left though. Quote
oldscsc Posted February 26, 2010 Author Report Posted February 26, 2010 How low does the oil pressure have to be to trigger the gauge to peg low and trigger the light? Quote
RobertISaar Posted February 26, 2010 Report Posted February 26, 2010 How low does the oil pressure have to be to trigger the gauge to peg low and trigger the light? on a 94 cutty 3.4? ~4PSI according to alldata. Quote
oldscsc Posted February 27, 2010 Author Report Posted February 27, 2010 Damn it. It sounds terrible. Something oil related is seriously messed up right now Quote
oscar_wilde Posted February 27, 2010 Report Posted February 27, 2010 My Lumina had an oil gauge instead of a volt meter. It never worked. Every oil change would give drastically different readings depending on the temperature and oil brand. Quote
Night Fury Posted February 27, 2010 Report Posted February 27, 2010 Damn it. It sounds terrible. Something oil related is seriously messed up right now It's running terrible? Quote
oldscsc Posted February 27, 2010 Author Report Posted February 27, 2010 It runs fine, sounds terrible tho. Like somethings not getting oil. Quote
1990lumina Posted February 27, 2010 Report Posted February 27, 2010 You haven't mentioned yet if you've actually checked your oil level. Also make sure you don't have a Hastings filter on it - I've seen them plug completely and they don't seem to have bypass valves! First thing I'd do is check the oil level. And stop driving it, although it sounds like damage is probably already done. Quote
digitaloutsider Posted February 27, 2010 Report Posted February 27, 2010 First check the oil level and check the oil filter to make sure that it hasn't collapsed. Quote
AL Posted February 27, 2010 Report Posted February 27, 2010 Good possibility of oil pump is what its sounding like to me Quote
oldscsc Posted February 27, 2010 Author Report Posted February 27, 2010 Checking the oil was the first thing I did. It was right on the money. Didn't check the filter, but (and I know this doesn't make it invinsible) it has an AmsOil filter rated for 25k / one year with about 5k on it. I defenitely stopped driving it..I'm dumb mechanically but not that dumb I was thinking oil pump or clogged oil passage somewhere. Not sure. But it was trailered to my mechanic's house. I'll have pics up sometime. Quote
Galaxie500XL Posted February 28, 2010 Report Posted February 28, 2010 I had something similar happen once with my old '64 Galaxie, a piece of debris (old valve stem seal) had gotten into the oil pump, and held the pressure relief valve open...result, almost no oil pressure. I've seen similar things happen before..it may be the pressure relief valve has failed, or the oil pump itself is no longer producing sufficient volume. In the case of that old Ford, I simply replaced the oil pump. Drove it 25,000 miles after that, with no problems. But, as they say, "your mileage may vary".. Quote
oldscsc Posted March 4, 2010 Author Report Posted March 4, 2010 One of my lifters sheared off. That's what was clogging the oil filter, causing the oil deprivation. Currently being fixed, not sure when I'll have it back. Will probably be quite a while though. Quote
Brian P Posted March 4, 2010 Report Posted March 4, 2010 one of your lifters sheared off? What? Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.