My question is about how fast the oil pressure should come up on an 01 7.3. After the last oil change, motorcraft filter & rotella T 15w-40, the oil pressure doesn't come up very fast after the first start of the day. In fact the truck has shut down because it didn't come up fast enough, I would say that it is usually 2-3 seconds before the guage starts to read pressure and when the engine shuts down it is about 4 seconds. This is not good, IMHO, the dealer says not to worry about it but I beg to differ. The engine has 60000 miles on it and I have never had this problem before. I have since changed the oil again and put on a puralator filter from Sears but I still have the same problem, not all the time but spuratically . The temp here is usually above 32 at night. Any suggestions on what it could be, sensor? I have no problems after the first start of the day and the pressure doesn't not fluctuate when running, it is always 2/3 to High.

 

anyone have an oil pressure guage on their truck? I installed one on mine (had to fabricate an adapter) but i run about 25 PSI idle and 35-40 PSI on the highway.

 

I guess I wouldn't be too concerned if the gauge came up slowly since it isn't all that great a gauge anyway, but if the truck actually shuts down, that's a whole different thing. I'm with you, I'd be worried about it.

 

I am supposing that you put in the proper amount of oil ??
I did have one engine go goofy and found the oil pressure sending unit to be the culprit. After installing the manual guage, I did feel more comfortable.

 

I had that problem with my diesel and it was when the temps were cold that it would do that. What was going on was the oil pressure was not coming up fast enough causing the oil in the high pressure pump reservoir to run out therefore the engine would die. Ford had to replace the lube oil pump as it was out of spec or just plain wore out. It will not come up with a code so Ford when they were testing it would keep saying that there wasn't anything wrong. Finally I had the mechanic just drive the truck home and told him to be late for work and it would act up and it did. You still have the 100,000 mile warranty so it should only cost the deductable to have it fixed. I found out that this generally is a problem at the factory at first startup sometimes as the pumps are not lubed enough causing them to score in the pump, therefore they will lose prime after a period of time. If you find yourself having the engine quit after starting and it won't start back up when cranking or it starts then run rough briefly then stop you'll need to watch the oil gauge to see if comes up. The gauge is on or off so either there is oil pressure or there isn't. If you can't get it started after it quits you can refill the high pressure pump reservoir oil by taking the plastic cover off the top of the engine and to right of the reservoir housing you will see a round plug about a half inch in diameter that takes a allen wrench to undo, just unscrew that plug out and fill it with about a half quart of oil and put the plug back in making sure the o-ring is on the plug. It will take a few seconds for it to start, but when it does give it a little throttle so it will make the lube pump start working. It might take Ford a while to get idea that the lube pump is the problem, it took me four times to get them to finally get it right. Hope that this solves the problem.

 

Thanks for the replys, it is pretty much as I expected. I have been looking at trading for an 04 so maybe it is time to take the plunge.