oil light and gauge

[tony cerbera]

my oil light comes on and the oil pressure gauge drops to zero ocasionally, done it a few times yesterday, the oil level is fine and i had the oil pressure spring replaced recently, does anybody have any ideas what the problem is please ? its a 4.2 by the way

[Gazzab]

Does it happen when you turn left? If so it's lack of oil.
Otherwise maybe the oil pump?

[Tarmacshredder]

The oil pressure light is electronic and the pressure guage is capillary, if they are both showing no oil pressure you have no oil pressure at that moment. As gazzab says low oil and turning will lead to the oil pickup sucking air as the oil moves to one side Of the baffled sump. Why was the spring changed? If the previous one was broken were all the parts removed and the valve moving freely And undamaged?

[Mr Cerbera]

I had problems getting the true reading of the level in my sump until Jools suggested leaving the dipstick out of the engine overnight to avoid the capillary action which can occur in the dipstick tube.
(Just don't forget to put it back in the next morning)

[ukkid35]

If the oil level really is ok, then it could be the dreaded Auxiliary Shaft failure.

[tony cerbera]

the oil light and oil pressure gauge come on when i was driving on a straight road and not turning, if its the auxilary shaft is is a big expensive job? thank you everybody for your advice

[chrisroe89]

I'm definitely not the most qualified person on here to be giving technical advice, however I have spoken to several companies about getting the pump rebuilt. As I understand it, all three pumps are combined and run off the same shaft; download the build manual if you haven't already.

The problem is accessing the area, unfortunately it is an engine out job and will cost somewhere in the region of £1,500 (from memory). The actual pump rebuild shouldn't cost more than £300 as a ball park figure.

There was also a thread on here that states all of the seals etc are off the shelf parts and it is possible to DIY.

[chrisroe89]

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=982...

Have a look at the last couple of comments

[gruffalo]

tony cerbera said:

the oil light and oil pressure gauge come on when i was driving on a straight road and not turning, if its the auxilary shaft is is a big expensive job? thank you everybody for your advice

I am pretty sure it is an engine out job.

While you are in there you may as well do a full refurb of the oil dand water pumps, it takes about a day to strip and rebuild the pumps and a few hours for the remedial work yo the aux shaft drive, you are probably looking at 2 days labour plus parts.