Hello,

Saturday night while driving my (t)rusty '92 Ranger 4.0, I noticed that there was no oil pressure according to the gauge. I tried shutting down and restarting a few times, but the pressure never came up. I have noticed pressure fluctuations for about a month or two, but never did it read absolutely nothing. My last oil change was probably about 500 miles ago.

Anybody have any similar experiences? My search showed a few topics about problematic sending units, is this most likely the problem or could the pump have failed?

This is my daily driver, I need to have it running!


thanks,

Chris

 

The oil pressure gauge is really an idiot gauge. By that, it is designed to read midrange at around 7 psi. For piece of mind, you can verify oil pressure by hooking up a real gauge to it temporarily. Chances are, you've got a bad sending unit. Less likely would be a bad ground.

 

I agree with Cowboybilly the guage in the truck is a idiot, hook up a guage with the PSI reading on it, mount it in the truck if you like some where it looks neat or if you prefer not to just want to check pressure unscrew the sending unit from block and screw the fitting on the tubing in the kit with the maunal guage in the block and the other end to the guage and check your oil pressure, replace the old sending unit you took out with a new one or like I said install the manual oil pressure guage somewhere in your truck that looks good and never worry about that oil pressure again...
I forgot to ask you do you hear a rattling noise when you have no oil pressure, hope the answer is no, if it is yes well guess it's time to replace that oil pump you meantion, let's hope it is just the guage...Good Luck.....keep us posted...

 

Thanks for the replies. I hooked up a test gauge last night, 75 psi at startup! Thank god it wasn't a pump failure, I really didn't want to drive the 250 every day to work. I suspected the gauge or rather the sending unit because the engine was running fine with no evil noises, and I had driven it about a mile to get home when I first noticed the gauge reading. I'll probably just replace the sending unit and stick with the stock idiot gauge.


Thanks,

Chris