dan davies

just driving around tonight ,and my oil light started flashing,pulled over ,waited a moment , oil level a bit low ,toped it up ,now the light flashes sometimes , - oil pressure still reading ok as well ,but the light flashes ??

stealth

My 86.5 does the same thing, though the gauge reads 5 bar when it should and 3+ bar at idle when warm as it should and the oil level is just right. Going to replace oil pressure sender, which is kind of a cheap shot in the twilight but not a bad starting place.

Randy V

Model year of your car?

Try disconnecring the negative side of the battery for a couple minutes. That should reset the warning light.

FlyingDog

Why not test yours first? It's a standard VDO sender which reads 10-180ohms. With no pressure, it should read 10ohms. At the peak pressure for the sender/gauge it should read 180.

dan davies

its a 928 s2 ,1985 , manual box,

marton

Which oil light? There is a low level light & a low pressure light.

Is it a steady rythmic flashing like every second or two or is it a sort of irregular flickering.

Marton

dan davies

it a sort of irregular flickering , the warning light below the oil meter on the dashboard, i have some pressure, but not reading above - 4 when reving ,

Drmark

If it only happens when hot - eg after restart when you have stopped for fuel - it may be the oil pressure regulator. Happened to my S4 and had me scratching my head for a while but changing the sender fixed it.
Mark

Drmark

Type "Oil pressure warning ?? false alarm" into the search facility and you will see my thread and the fix.

stealth

I thought of that after I posted, that I'm a little quick with the replacements because I have access to a parts car. The gauge seems to be working, only the warning light is hyperactive...(well, or the gauge is telling me I have pressure when I don't, but I doubt that since it moves from 5 bar cold or revved down to 3 bar when warm and idling like is standard expected behavior, so I think it's only the warning circuit...and the motor would've blown up long ago if there were no oil pressure). Mine seems more like a wiring issue with the warning circuit but swapping the sender should be simple enough to be worth it for the process of elimination.

marton

I have had this symptom a couple of times. Once was due to low voltage from the alternator which fools the oil pressure gauge.
other time was fixed by topping up the oil which was low but not at the low level point yet.

Marton

abbzer0

What type of oil are you using? I had tried 10w-30 which worked great in the winter, but had too low of oil pressure in the heat. My warning light would flick on at an idle, so I had to keep the RPM's up a little. Switched to the recommended Shell Rotella 15W-40 and all is well in sharkland.

marton

Could also be an alternator syndrome, a few more RPMs ups the alternator output.

Marton

Fogey1

Drmark wrote: "Type "Oil pressure warning ?? false alarm" into the search facility and you will see my thread and the fix."

A great thread, a real keeper, but ...
Trying that title gets:
"Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms.
The following words are either very common, too long, or too short and were not included in your search : ??"

As does trying "Oil presure warning ?? false alarm." Which is the _actual_ mis-spelled thread title.

Interestingly "Oil presure warning" found the thread, but not "Oil pressure warning".

But I tried that only for scientific reasons after I'd already found the thread by searching for Drmark's posts. Here it is:

https://rennlist.com/forums/928-forum/183135-oil-presure-warning-false-alarm.html
Oil presure warning ?? false alarm.

Thanks, Drmark

neilh

LOL : because PRESSURE is the correct spelling ( at least for some of us Brits ) , and forums do not have a spelling checker, so anything works!
Good luck with your problem, I chased a similar problem for a long time until I pulled the pod for an unrelated issue, and found the two small nuts on the back of the oil gauge were loose, as were many of the others.
I removed, cleaned and retightened and now everything reads ( and warns) about where it should.

Neil