oil gauge

[jbfirebird22]

my oil gauge has been acting weird for a while now. its been doing teh "hopping around" the pressure fluxautes at times.not a whole lot of a degree but the needle twitces at steady driving speeds and also at idle. at idle, sometimes it reads at the first line sometimes it reads in the middle of where the red starts to the first time and will at times fluxuate. the oil sending unit was changed but it still does it, mechanic took a look at it and he thinks that it might just be a bad gauge. anyone had
issues with bad gauges that could tell me that a sign of a gauge going bad/is bad, is that it twitches

[HeadyFirebird'00]

change to snthetic oil maybe.

[Rob Bell]

Anytime you have an oil pressure-related problem, you need to hook up a mechanical gauge to verify that it is actually the sender/gauge system and not the actual oiling system that has a problem. If the mechanical gauge shows nice even oil pressure, then you know it's just a gauge or sending unit. If the mechanical gauge acts like the electical one, then you've got an engine problem that needs to be addressed. It's probably just a bad gauge or sender... but you never know until you verify.

[jbfirebird22]

well, the sender has been changed. the mech said it was the gauge. ive had a bad gauge experience with the speed gauge and it acted similar, except it was alot worse. i was hoping that someone else had the same issue with their gauge before. also usually if its bad pressure, its either going to be really high or really low. i wouldnt think that fluctuation would make the needle flicker (just at random times, not constantly). also just another piece of fyi, in the morn or after a few hours of sitting, the gauge is perfectly fine

[Rob Bell]

I agree it probably is the gauge, the chances of the gauge or sender failing are way higher than the oiling system failing. Since it only does it after running awhile there's probably something that fails when it gets warm. I've read that pulling the instrument cluster is not too hard (never done it myself though), a search will bring that up. Maybe you can just switch out the oil gauge without replacing the whole cluster.

[jbfirebird22]

i plan on just buying an aftermarket gauge and just installing it. porlly going to b expensive to replace the cluster gauge

[Need4Camaro]

Not to overlook the simplicity but I had the same situation and it turned out I just needed an oil change... Also a few things to know... On a cold start your oil pressure is always going to be higher then it will be after you ran the engine for about half an hour... So on a cold start it can be around 60 PSI and then after you drive for away it may be down to 30... Good fresh lube fixxed this problem for me...

[jbfirebird22]

the oil was changed a couple times after the situation started

[jbfirebird22]

well, after figuring that the gauge was bad, i finally got around to putting in an after market gauge. the needle on the new gauge twitches also. anyone have any idea of what it might be.

[FireFighter]

Originally posted by HeadyFirebird'00:
change to snthetic oil maybe.

Exlapin how you think that will help...

Have you had the system checked out, not just by the gauges in the car?

[jbfirebird22]

the previous mech that i explained it to checked it with an analog gauge they said, and they said the pressure was correct(this is when i was worried about low oil pressure) im not sure if they observed a bouncy needle or not. thats the only kind of checks as far as oil is concerned, that i have had

[brink]

my gauge does the same thing.. ive never had any oil problems and i just changed my oil yesterday and its still doing it.. guess the guages are just bad.. i mean its nothing big, it still functions how it should, at idle its down in like a little more then 1/4... then when driving like a little more then half way..

so dont worry brotha, just the gauge ;)

[HeadyFirebird'00]

My '89 camaro did that typr of thing with the the oil and speedo gauges. i was glad to get rid of that car.

[jbfirebird22]

Originally posted by brink:
my gauge does the same thing.. ive never had any oil problems and i just changed my oil yesterday and its still doing it.. guess the guages are just bad.. i mean its nothing big, it still functions how it should, at idle its down in like a little more then 1/4... then when driving like a little more then half way..

so dont worry brotha, just the gauge ;)

i was thinkiing it was the gauge too, but i bought a brand new aftermarket gauge and that one does the same as the factory one

[Turbo V6 Camaro]

mine does this at idle, only cause of the lope, lope, lope, lope, lope [img]graemlins/naughty.gif[/img] ;) ;)

at WOT i have 80 PSI :D