Oil Pressure Indicator

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Jan 31, 2005 | 07:51 AM

daniele

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Oil Pressure Indicator

The gauge, in my instrument panel, has become very sluggish in showing any oil pressure. It used to show good pressure almost immediately after turning on the engine. Now it may take 3-5 minutes. Once it shows a good pressure it is fine. This problem seems the worst first thing in the morning. The oil level is fine and once the engine has been running a few minutes it seems fine. I also have noticed if the engine is only off for an hour or two it registers a good pressure faster. Has anyone seen this before?

Jan 31, 2005 | 10:02 AM

Dave257

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What year is the truck? Some of the later years have dummy guages that come on with juat a few pounds of pressure and don't really show the true oil pressure. They read the same for 10lbs or 50lbs of pressure. It could be the guage is sticky. The early years had true pressure guages that may reflect a problem with the oil pressure slowly building up.
Dave

Jan 31, 2005 | 11:13 AM

D-ranged2.5

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From: Michigan

My '01 does that, but only when it's cold. It sometimes bounces around and tries to trick me a few times.

Once it's warmed up it's fine usually. I've got quite a few bulbs out behind the dash, however, so I think it's just some sort of electrical malfunction.

Jan 31, 2005 | 11:21 AM

Bart99GT

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I think everything after 91 or so has the idiot gauge. You can check by looking where the oil pressure sending unit is supposed to be and see if you have a cylinder shaped sending unit or something that looks like a hex head bolt with a wire coming out of it. If it is the latter, you have the idiot gauge.

If you do a search, you can find instructions on how to make the gauge work properly by swapping the sending units and removing a fixed resistor from the instrument panel.

Jan 31, 2005 | 11:32 AM

daniele

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Thanks for all of the responses.
I have a '99 Ranger, that acts like the one D-ranged2.5 described.
It sounds like a common problem. Is it something that should be fixed, or is it best just to leave it alone? A friend of mine has a 2000 model and says that his has been doing the same for quite awhile.

Jan 31, 2005 | 11:32 AM

PW01

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My 01 was doing the same thing. It turned out to be the oil sending unit, seems to be a fairly common problem.

Jan 31, 2005 | 06:09 PM

knoxnil

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From: NW IL

Idiot Oil Gauge

yep yep, mine too. '00 3.0, I've seen this discusion elsewhere somewhere before.
It seems the gauges only works when the oil pressure reaches a set point then boing--the gauges shoots up to the middle range of the gauges. So in the winter in the morning when your oil is thick and not registering enough pressure, the gauges shows no oil pressure. Then after a couple minutes warm up the pressure is right for the gauges to work.
The same as the old idiot lights, they tried to trick us with an idiot gauges.

Last edited by knoxnil; Jan 31, 2005 at 06:20 PM.