reading of the stock gauge in my TII was reading 30 psi at idle, 60 whenever driving. Then about 2 days ago the oil pressure was reading around 15 idle and 50 driving. I thought there may be an oil leak from the oil cooler, there was a small one, but there was not significant loss of oil.

So today I replaced the oil cooler and took the turbo off and looked for any signs of an oil problem through the turbo. Everything was clean, no oil in the intake or signs of oil in the exhaust, or through the intercooler. Put everything back together, Performed the thermal pellet shim mod as well.

No signs of leaks anywhere now, but oil pressure is still not reading where it should. It is reading even less pressure at idle now, about 10psi, but while driving around it stays on the upper side of 50psi but never hits 60 psi.

When I had the turbo off there was a lot of shaft wobble, relatively no axial play but I could move it radially more than it should be able to go. However there were no distinct signs of any oil problems or leaks.

Just looking for some input on where I might proceed next after I get a hold of a manual oil pressure gauge to double check, but the gauge was working properly and then I started seeing lower pressure.

If the oil pressure is actually 10psi at Idle and only 50psi driving around, what might be the problem other than what I already took care of?

 

I might pass on that option.

 

So would I.
I think it's odd that your gauge started to give different readings and you've looked everywhere except at the gauge itself.
Perhaps it's the sending unit or the condensor/capacitor (?) thingie on the slave cylinder that's started to go.

 

Yes that's true, but I was wanting to get into the turbo and check it out, as well as port the wastegate and have enough things taken off the engine just to check out things in general as this is a new car to me, so this gave me a good reason. In my other tII I never had a problem with the oil pressure gauge with 156000 miles, this AE only has 88000 miles on it, so I figured the gauge would still be working well. Have an oil pressure gauge on the way to get some realistic information