my oil gauge drops down upon start up and even drops down on other occasion. this causes my oil light to come on. i check my oil repeatedly, but it is never low. If i race up my engine, the gauge goes back to where it is supposed to go. Help if you can?

brad

 

Sounds like an engine ready for a rebuild. How many miles are on it?

 

It could be that the sending unit is failing. How many miles are on this engine? When the gauge drops, how long is down? Does the engine make any odd noises when the gauge drops?

 

I thought the oil pressure gauge is an "Idiot Gauge" that will read at a certain spot as long as the pressure is at least 4 psi. I don't know what year Ford started using the useless gauges but my 2000 has one.

 

my truck is brand new. i have had it two months and it has only 2,000 miles on it.

 

Drops down from what?

This is an oil pressure gauge, there isn't any oil pressure until the engine is turning over.

Does it go up when you start it and then drop down? The oil light always comes on for a few seconds after start up. If it comes on again after that, you've got a problem.

 

My previous Co. truck (97 F-150, S/C with 4.6l) had an oil guage that started acting weird at approx. 150,000 miles. You would be driving along and guage would sometimes drop to zero and then jump back up to normal.

NEVER! Did the oil light ever come on when the guage dropped to zero. I took it to dealership and they replaced guage--cost approx. $54.00 (U.S.)--that was (2) years ago.

 

I had the same dumpy oil guage deal on my 95 F-150. The guage reads the same pressure at all times when the engine is running.The fix that I used on that truck was to replace the factory sending unit with a "real" sending unit for an older model Ford with a guage. Then by simply removing the instrument cluster, locating the 450 ohm resistor in the printed circuit that keeps the guage from pegging out on the high side, and removing the resistor, jumping the connections back together with any old ordinary piece of wire, and stuff the cluster back in it's place. Bravo, the oil guage works like a guage should.