oil pressure gauge / sensor
 

Well, I've experienced the usual oil pressure sensor failure. Failed about 2 years ago (guage was reading 120psi (max). I bought a replacement part this past winter and finally got around to installing it this weekend (where I also did a oil change/filter change).

The new sensor worked great for a couple days -- indicating around 42 psi (a little past the center marking on the guage). Wednesday I noticed that the guage was reading a little low when at idle.. about 20ish.. but went up to normal after depressing the gas pedal just a little bit. Eh..

Thursday was "Guages Gone Wild" day. Ever since Thurs, the guage has been bouncing from 0 (the DIC alerted me to this too) to MAX.. back and forth a lot while I was driving. I've found that if engine RPM is < 850, the guage will read MAX. If engine RPM >850, the guage will read 0. I've checked and reseated the wires to the oil pressure sensor.. no change. No major oil loss. Over the past year, I've had to add 1qt when the DIC tells me i have about 30% left.

Is this a bad sensor? its only been in service for 1 week. Maybe my crappy FRAM oil filter i just put in is a problem? I've driven 3 days like this and my car hasn't blown up yet (no sound change either) -- so i think the oil flow is good. gut says its just a bad sensor -- but i cant (well maybe i can) believe it would go bad after a few days.

ideas?

Sounds like you bought a bummed sensor, some cheaper ones are like that, on my Old SSEi, i bought one that was cheaper, it was hit and miss weather or not it wanted to work..
Eh
You from Canada? 8)

What brand of oil sender did you buy??


I'm not shure about your poblem,, but i do know you need to get rid of that piece of
sh*t FRAM orange can of death filter.. and use a AC delco or NAPA Gold or Puroilator.

sensor
 

it was an AC Delco -- or .. i should say, it was a sensor that came in an AC Delco box (from gmpartsdirect.com)

Re: sensor
 

Hmmmm....mabie buy one from your local stealership ....

First thing I'd be doing is pull the valve cover cap (oil filler neck and cap) off and look for signs of oil. You should see some.

Then, figure the sensor is bad and replace it, unless you would like to go through the diagnostics to check the sensor/gauge. There should be a reading (don't have FSM w/me) that we can test for on the sensor and a resistor that could be put into place in the connector to test the gauge.

Yea but a NEW senser is always a good piece of mine at 145K..in my book anyway

Thank you..

Options were offered. Personally I have tons of resistors laying around and realize you never know if others do as well. A free test that takes under 5 minutes might be worth the $15-$35 dollars to someone if the sensor isn't bad.

If he wanted to simply replace the sensor again, he probably wouldn't have posted and asked for more ideas/suggestions.

He posted didn't he???????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????

problem solved
 

Well i think my problem is solved. here is what I did today:

remove oil filter. replace the oil pressure sensor with a new part. sprayed carb cleaner on the wire's connector. plugged wire into sensor. replaced oil filter with a new filter. topped off the oil level.

the only reason why i messed with the oil filter is because i didn't have the proper rachet socket for the sensor - so i was using a pair of pliers.

So, it may have been a bad sensor, a completely stopped up filter (i doubt it), or the wire's connector may have had crap in it (and the carb cleaner cleaned off the contacts). There was noticeable oil in the contacts on the wire's connector.