intermittant oil pressure?
 

I noticed that I had no oil pressure on the guage a couple days ago. So I found a vacuum leak somewhere in the rats nest. As soon as I connected the disconnected line, the guage went up to normal operating conditions.

Yesterday driving I noticed that I was reading "0" on the guage, but the car ran fine. I drove it home and checked for vacuum leaks. There were none. I cleaned the oil pressure sensor connector. Now it reads sometimes, but most of the time it does not.

Should I be worried about the engine, or does it sound like it is just the sensor? The oil cooler gets hot even with no oil pressure reading, and the car runs fine. I dont want to ruin my motor. I have only had the car on the road since Friday. It sat for a year with a few starts here and there before now. I dont really know this car that well. It's a project car.

It may be your oil pressure sending unit - that copper colored 'mushroom'-shaped thing just below the oil filter tower, and just above the heater inlet on the driver's side of the car. This is not vacuum powered, however, but you may have moved the wiring harness that attaches the single yellow-lead wire to the spade connector that goes on the top of the mushroom. This is an electrical sending unit that delivers a resistance current to the oil pressure gauge in the dash to determine the oil pressure passing through the oil filter tower.

If the car seems to be running okay, that means you likely have good oil pressure, just no signal to the gauge. First signs would be overheating, but by that time, it's too late. Check your oil level now to be sure that you have enough volume to develop pressure.

A quick fix might be to clean up the connector really well that fits on the top of the pressure sending unit. This is usually all it is unless you have an early model car, in which case, you could probably do well to replace the sending unit, itself. I replaced mine last year and it instantly fixed an apparent problem that the gauge would show high oil pressure at speed, but very low oil pressure at idle.

New sending unit now displays about 50psi at idle, and up to about 70psi at speed, which is within spec according to Haynes and the FSM. My old gauge read sometimes as high as 110, but I KNOW it wasn't really that high.

Worth the $20 at BAP, if for nothing but piece of mind. I wouldn't drive my car without some indication of oil pressure - it's too much to risk for not taking the time to fix the part, IMO.

Thanks for the advice. I change the oil 2 weeks ago when I replaced the oil cooler o-rings, so I think that is OK. I will clean the sensor again tomorrow to see if that makes a difference.

I have been messing around trying to get a stock stereo installed which has given me some grief. Could my wiring issues with the stereo have effected the iol pressure sensor?

I cleaned the sensor. No luck. The oil pressure reads fine until the car warms up. After a few minutes it will drop to "0".

The car runs fine when warmed up, but I am still concerned. Should I grab another sensor from the junkyard?