I know 97 Cougar dosn't fit this forum but the 4.6 does what a pain in the a-- getting the housing out an the new gasket plate back in. I replaced the oil pressure switch now the oil light stays on, do I need to unscrew it a little to bleed the air out ? I know it has oil pressure because it didn't blow up in the 1/2 hr. I ran it to burp the coolant system. Ideas or help. Thanks. John

 

Post this in the engine forums they should be able to help you more and 4.6 does not go in this forum.

 

4.6 does not belong here... But no you shouldn't have to bleed it. Either the sensor itself is the wrong one, or there is a connection issue. Why did you replace it in the first place?

Mechanical gauge is the way to go anyways. The factory ones don't give you actual pressure readings...

 

You got the wrong oil pressure switch. I had a 97 Thunderbird (same MN12 chassis as Cougars) and in 97 both cars went to the stupid Taurus gauge cluster with an idiot light for low oil pressure. All the years before that had a Thunderbird/Cougar specific cluster with an oil gauge and fake sensor/switch.

With the gauges, the switch would close above 7 PSI (or some other ridiculously low number) and swing the gauge over to NORMAL. But with the 97 cluster, the switch would OPEN with oil pressure above 7 PSI to kill the idiot light.

I know this because I ripped out the gay Taurus cluster and put in a 94 cluster, and I quickly discovered that problem.

How I fixed it was just like any other Ford oil gauge... replace the resistor with a jumper and put in a real sending unit to make the gauge functional.

EDIT: oh by the way, a 4.6 can run a LONG time without oil pressure... when I blew my factory engine I decided to kill it completely since I had a PI (Performance Improved) engine to replace it with. Ran that thing up and down the back roads at full throttle with no oil or coolant... it tore itself up til it only had like 30 horsepower left, smoking, clanking... but it never blew up. Just cause it idled ok don't mean it had good pressure but you'd have heard the hyd. lifters if it had zero, so I'd say you just have the wrong switch.