help...

[B C]

I posted about my oil pressure and now its been going crazy. it was only shooting up to 58 psi at idle, still I decided to take it for a drive and it kept going all over the place. When I got off highway speeds the oil pressure dropped like crazy. Down to 20, so I watched it for a bit. I turned off the car and tried starting it.. it sounded bad, very bad

[B C]

sorry for that babble, I was on my cell.. Anyway, I started it up again after 15 minutes and it seemed to run OK.. but the oil pressure kept dropping down to 17 PSI by the time I got home and was relatively steady at 46PSI at highway speeds. it wasnt until near home it started going very low. Ive tried a few MAJOR auto stores and NO ONE carries a mechanical fuel pressure gauge!! I really dont know.

The only idea I have at this point is to use my old fuel pressure sensor and see what IT says. But if this new one I have now isnt working properly, then I dont think its even worth putting the old one in.

Im at a loss here

[padgett]

First thing is to try is a different sender, they are notorious for faulty readings.

Or was it peaking at 17 psi when you got it home when it started at 46 ? Any funny noises ?

Engine Oil Pressure Tester Gauge Diagnostic Test Kit Adapters Case 100 PSI NEW : Amazon.com : Automotive

The car was Canadian or you are in Canada ?

[B C]

It started out OK before I left, other than the recent surging. It seems to be fine while its cold, but as soon as it warms up, it goes crazy. The last few days it only did this while I was idling. It was the usual 38-50 PSI then, I noticed at a stop light while it was idling, that it was shooting up to 68PSI. It continued doing this for about 2 days(driving only 20miles in that timeframe). Tonight I decided to go see if I could find a gauge, on the way there, the pressure was going up to 68PSI no matter what I was doing. Once I got there, I watched as the pressure still did its "thing". I decided to turn off the car, then restart it. It took a bit of cranking for it to turn over and once it did the pressure showed about 18-25psi. I went in for a bit to check if they had a gauge, nothing, so I come back out to the car and posted my babble(sorry). It started up fine, ran, fine, oil pressure was around 40 until I hit the 65mph mark, then it started jumping all over again. As I was coming up to my house I laid off the throttle to coast and it just dropped down to 17 and shuttered a bit. The whole way slowly going down my street it was going from 17- 35. Constant up and down.

As for funny noises, personally I think the engine sounds like its grinding/rattling alot by the manifold. Other than that seems to be fine.

Car is originally from Cali. Brought here with 2000 miles 5 years ago, now has 34k

Edited August 2, 2013 by Brendan Charron (see edit history)

[Machiner 55]

Brenden,

If you don't want to wait on shipping and you're handy and have a good hardware store, you can make your own gauge assembly.

John F.

[Barney Eaton]

You could have two seperate "problems". First, get the oil pressure checked with a old style gage as noted above. If you do it yourself, check the harmonic balancer (the big pully at the bottom of the engine) for slop while you have your hands in the area.

I suspect the oil pressure variations is the sending unit and the noise you hear is something unrelated. The 3800 engine is almost "bullet proof" but external components can fail.

[Ronnie]

When a gauge is used to check the oil pressure how is the fuel pump powered to keep the engine running? I've never tested oil pressure with a gauge on a Reatta. Is the preferred method running a jumper from the battery to the green test/prime connector, or do you jumper the connector terminals that plugs to the oil pressure sender?

[Machiner 55]

Ron,

That's a good question. I never used the gauge setup that I made but, my intention was to install a Tee so that I could compare pressure readings from the car with that of the "steam" gauge. When done, I woud install a plug in the Tee so it would be there the next time I wanted to check it. This way there would be no need to jumper or "force" the sensor circuit.

John F.

[2seater]

Perhaps others have tried a tee below the sender but I never found a good way to do so. The heater feed pipes are directly above the sender, so unless some senders are shorter than others, it doesn't look like there is enough room with the sender stacked on top of the tee? It may be possible to place the sender in the side of the tee, but I was always concerned the horizontal weight of the sender wouldn't be a good thing for longevity. A steel or stainless steel fitting would be stronger than a brass type, and there may be low profile specialized tee's for use where clearance is an issue but never investigated. In my case, I have a tapped hole into the passage below the sender on the oil filter adapter to feed my turbo oiling, so I have used my turbo feed line for a pressure tap a couple of times. If really serious about adding a mechanical gauge, tapping directly into the filter adapter is relatively simple to do and a gauge could be located under the hood if not desired in the cabin. In this case, hotwiring the fuel pump and a hose connected in place of the sender would seem the simplest.

[B C]

You can put 12v on the green connector to turn the fuel pump on.

Edited August 3, 2013 by padgett (see edit history)