Oil pressure sender

[foxy600]

Seem to have a strange problem with my oil pressure sender, The gauge reading is fine until the car has been running a while and the engine is hot, then the gauge is very irratic, jumping from normal to 0 and anywhere inbetween!
I don't want to go through the hassle of changing it (draining the oil etc) if it'sd a wiring problem. I have checked the connections on the sender and they look fine....any ideas?

[spivvy]

you don't need to drain oil to change sender (not on the 2.9 engine) as the oil temperatures warms up the pressure will drop on idle but not to nought ,

a while back i had a problem with an oil sender and there's way to test the electrics to see if it is a short ,do a search for oil sender and it should bring something up

[GreenV8S]

Disconnect the wires at the sender and see if the sender resistance is jumping about. If it is you need a new sender (don't bother draining the oil, just be quick), if it isn't then you have a wiring/gauge fault.

[rick.e]

Oil pressure "problems" on the V6 are almost invariably the sender which is notoriously unreliable. The engine itself keeps predicatble oil pressure unless its really sh**ged. Symptoms vary from irregular undication to low indication and sometimes a strange reversal where oil pressure appears to fall as engine revs rise.

[foxy600]

Definately sounds like the sender, where's the best (and cheapest) place to get one? Is it best to jack the car that side, just incase?

[chingers]

Had exactly the same symptoms you described and replaced the sender last Sunday. Gauge is now rock solid. You will lose a little oil when you take it off so put a tray down first. Got mine from DGs at £38.75 prior to p&p and vat.

[spivvy]

chingers said:

Had exactly the same symptoms you described and replaced the sender last Sunday. Gauge is now rock solid. You will lose a little oil when you take it off so put a tray down first. Got mine from DGs at £38.75 prior to p&p and vat.

Do you find the pressure drops on idle ?
if so to what ?

my old sender never seemed to move off the half way mark but since i put the new one on it drops on idle and rises to the horizontal when moving and stays rock steady

[Hoover33]

Mine on start up is half way on tick over,

After it has warmed up it is down the quarter mark on tick over.

Upper limit is about 3/4 mark depending on how hard you are pushing (ok mines nealy always up there )

[chingers]

When the problems first started 18 monthe ago pressure was about 45psi when hot dropping to 20psi at idle and the needle was very erratic. Before I replaced it the needle was struggling to do anything and dropped to zero at idle. Now getting to just above 50 when cold dropping to 50 when warm and running; slightly less than that at idle which is pretty well what the book quotes.