oil pressure? (not stock gauge)

[cbarr300]

Hey guys, I have an autometer oil pressure gauge....and a possibly big problem:

When I was cruising around today I noticed my needle go from 40 psi, to 0 for a second or two, and then right back up to 40 PSI. It does this off and on once every 2 mins or so (If I had to average it out).

The pump seems to be working fine. It goes up with rpms and never goes below 25 psi at a warm idle..Oil level is also perfect. There's also no abnormal noises coming from the engine other than the loud lifters (been there forever though)

My gut is telling me that I just have a loose wire somewhere. It just started doing it today...and yesterday I changed my plugs out. However, when I jiggled the wires around nothing happened...so who knows.

I've never heard of an oil pump doing that so I'm assuming/HOPING its the wiring for the sensor.


sorry for the novel..but any second opinions would be REALLY nice to have. Thanks :SNSign:

 

[cbarr300]

anyone?

 

[The Green GT]

Sounds like a loose wire to me.
Mine will shoot up past the max sometimes and stay there. I need to fix my wiring.

 

[go-stang5.0]

I dunno if theres any way to test the sender? Dont just tug on the wires, visually inspect them. You may have torn insulation somewhere and the wire may be grounding out. Also, if the oil press. sender is old it could be that how much are the senders anyways...? Also, check your stock gauge to see what happens when the autometer drops to 0. I know stock is junk but if the oil press. is actually going to zero the stock gauge should do something......dip or fluctuate or something. Anyways if it doesn't, its prolly a wire or sender.

 

[StadEMS3]

I have the Autometer oil pressure & water temp gages. The water temp one will go to temp then snap to zero for a few minutes them go right back up to temp. I've heard a lot of issues with the autometer gages from others. I would guess it's the gage itself from experience..

 

[hollywoodstang]

just to let you know the stock guage with only 1 quart of oil in the car will stay in the middle, that's how much stock guage do not help, don't trust it, even before your stock guage drops, your oil low light will come up first. fun

 

[Killercanary]

If it turns out that the gauge is not the problem, I've seen a similar situation with one of my buddies cars. He has a 94-95 cobra. His cam bearing would spin on his every once and a while and when they did the oil hole would get blocked off and his oil pressure would drop. He searched to find that problem for a LONG time, but in the end that is what it was.

 

[hollywoodstang]

nice...another note taken

 

[cbarr300]

ok got it fixed

A wire had a REALLY tiny bare spot on it that I overlooked. Wrapped it up and no problem since.

Thanks guys