Yesterday I was topping off my oil and eyeballing my pinhole coolant leak on the side of the motor, and something caught my eye. My oil pressure sending unit condensor is just laying in the engine compartment. Now this car had a tranny rebuilt about 15k miles ago and they also left the belhousing to chassis ground disconnected. So I unbolted the driver side slave cylinder bolt and attached the condensor there, like I have read to do.

Here is my question though, why did my oil pressure sensor still work? It worked fine, and there was no change in its performance compared to now with the condensor connected. The way the condensor was hanging, it was not in any way grounded incidently to the engine or body, it was free hanging.

So how did it work? I hear people always saying thier guage is either bottomed out or pegged at the top when the condensor is disconnected.

 

They're wrong...
Lots of RX's are indicating pressure just fine with the condenser either missing or, like yours, just dangling helplessly.

The condenser is just a nice touch from the factory- I believe it protects the gauge from transient voltage spikes- but you'll notice that most aftermarket gauges don't have one and they work fine, just like yours did.

 

I think it just buffers the signal so the guage does not jump around.. on my old rx7 it was dangling just like yours and I bolted it back up, I don't remember if it made a difference though.

 

yea mine too, after i changed out my tranny i rushed to put it back together and left it cuz it was a bitch to put back in that cramped space.