

| Subject: | Oil pressure mystery, resolved??? |
| From: | Ben McCafferty |
| Date: | Mon, 30 Sep 2002 22:01:21 -0600 |
Well, as you know I've been trying to chase down the oil light/buzzer issue for a while. Mine occurs when exiting the highway, coasting in gear down to lower rpms; or when climbing hills at low rpms (i.e. approaching 2000 from above). I installed the VDO 80psi gauge from egauges.com, and got the dual terminal sending unit. I used Bill Davidson's great article from vanagon.com, with a couple of minor modifications--wanted to be able to remove the engine tin without removing the sender, so I notched the tin instead of just making a hole, and used a 5" hose instead of 3.5". It works great, and no leaks. Now then, just took a trip through western CO, and had lots of opportunities to pull mountain passes and load up the engine. I am running Mobil 1 15W50 synthetic (2.1L WBX). I did get the light/buzzer to come on several times while climbing passes. Every time it happened, the gauge read 20 PSI on the nose. No fluctuation. So I'm confused. If there was a sudden drop in pressure (to activate the idiot light), wouldn't there be a corresponding drop in pressure on the gauge??? Is 20 PSI a threshold for the idiot light, i.e. the engine should never drop below that? If that's the case, why can I idle at 8PSI with no idiot light? Anyway, I was glad to see that I did in fact have pressure, but I would be glad to hear theories about what's really going on. tx, bmc :) "Faith will move mountains, but you'd better bring a shovel...."
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