Oil Pressure Gauge

[Pied Piper]

My oil is between max and min. Driving the car today I noticed that when I braked sharply then dipped the clutch the oil pressure gauge would show almost zero oil pressure and the red oil light flickered on the gauge also dropped when going round right hand bends.

I had some oil and topped up to the max line the gauge seemed to take a while to recover then went back to normal.

I use 5w 40 fully synthetic oil is this too thin?
Or could it be something more serious?

Adding to my woes today the windscreen wipers packed up and the only way I could get them to work reliabley was remove the passenger wiper, not a great day for the Cerb.

Edited by Pied Piper on Sunday 19th July 18:53

[stuthemong]

I'd check the wiring of the guage first if you can, make sure there are no obvious kinks/damage to insulation. Do this without starting the engine. If you really think you have no pressure you best get it flatbedded somewhere - but I cant see why you'd have good pressure then NO pressure, then good pressure. Sounds more like instrumentation to me - fingers crossed for you that it is

[sonnylad]

The symptoms your gettin are due to low oil level, keep it topped up to atleast the max mark and not below.

Russ

[Pied Piper]

sonnylad said:

The symptoms your gettin are due to low oil level, keep it topped up to atleast the max mark and not below.

Russ

Guess I better check it more often then. Was checking weekly, I will now check before each use, thanks for the help.

[ro_butler]

sonnylad said:

The symptoms your gettin are due to low oil level, keep it topped up to atleast the max mark and not below.

Russ

Correct, these are exactly the symptoms to expect if the car is low on oil. usually accompanied by a 'groaning' sound.
Keep it topped up.

[stuthemong]

Wow! I'm surprised by that. I'm checking my oil weekly at the moment - I'll certainly continue to do so if this is the case!

[Pied Piper]

I am checking the oil cold at the moment is that the right thing to do?

How much oil does it need to go from min to max?

Not that I ever let it reach min of course.

[ro_butler]

Yes, check the oil cold. It is only in the dry sumped sp6 cars that you check the oil when it is hot (assuming you don't have a dry sumped race AJP8).

Not sure how much oil from min-max but it shouldn't really be using more than 1 litre per 1000 miles, so checking once a week should be fine.