No oil pressure at idle?

[9250stang]

Hello guys. When I am at a stoplight or whatever I'll be either sitting there in neutral or with the car in gear and foot on clutch and as soon as the tach goes below 1k rpm the oil pressure gauge just drops to the bottom. I'll hit the gas and it goes back up for a second but as soon as the rpm's get below 1k it just drops right back down as if it was weighted or something. The car sounds fine at idle. I am confident that I am getting oil pressure seeing as if I weren't I would hear SOMEthing. Right? Could this be a fault Oil Pressure Sending Unit? Or am I looking at a worse problem? I mean the car runs great.

 

[5.0 Nostalgia]

What year is your car? My '91 does that too. It's probably the gauge. If you had no oil pressure, you would know it. It's normal for oil pressure to drop at idle and increase with engine speed. The gauge probably isn't accurate, but at least it's working.

 

[NosPony]

My GT did the same thing. I put a new sending unit on it from Autozone. I think it was 6 bucks. Its the sending unit for sure.

If u had no oil pressure you would know it by now. The lifters would be ticking and possibly have some bad knocks by know

 

[Matts89LX5.0]

i currently have a similar problem, bad sending unit as stated before

 

[DMAN302]

I would not GUESS on something like that, an aftermarket gauge is $50...a HUGE savings over a new shortblock. Spend the $$ and 10minutes on the autometer.

 

[Stangtamer]

the same thing happened to me...i have 91 Gt...at idle, my oil pressure would either shoot below the red, or it would be sparatic and slip down and up really fast...oil physically cannot lose pressure that fast...it takes more time for it to do that...its your sending unit (the little module behind the power steering pum) i know for a fact...put a new one and the right one on there and you'll be fine...keep in mind you can idle with 5 PSI oil pressure and be fine...its your sending unit for sure... oh yeah and a little side not reguarding your sig...installing long tubes does suck...I KNOW good luck and let me know how it goes...later.

-jeremy

 

[9250stang]

Thanks guys. I am running up to autozone later for that sending unit. It's just not very heart warming to see the needle down there even though I know I have pressue. Thanks for the replies.

 

[9250stang]

Oh and it's a '93 Cobra.