Oil Pressure MAXED OUT!!! Bad gauge/connection or should I be worried?

I have a 92 XJ with a swapped in 98 HO. Recently I've been trying to get the thing on the road again after sitting for a little over a year and so have been trying to get it to pass the california smog test (failed last year after four tries hence the non-operating situation). At any rate - it's had some TLC lately - though very little with the engine except I took it into a garage to have a dead cylinder checked (didn't feel like hassling with it after changing all the plugs/wires etc). Anyway- I had the guys do an oil change at the same time.

But NOW, I just noticed that my oil pressure gauge is maxed out - off the scale - it would be something like 120 or so if the scale went that far.The needle doesn't move no matter what the RPM... should I assume that someone mistakenly disconnected the oil pressure gauge or should I REALLY worry about this? I checked oil reservoir levels and everything was fine -oil looked okay too. Though there's a bit of a nasty burning smell I'm getting right now which I attribute to a steering fluid hose leak (unless it's the seafoam I'm running in my gas?).

Any clues/hints/history on a situation like this??

Thanks.

Your sender is toast. The gauge being maxed is the symptom of a bad sender. Replace it.

Typical signature of a bad sending unit--next to the OFA--oil filter adapter.

ParadiseXJ said:

Your sender is toast. The gauge being maxed is the symptom of a bad sender. Replace it.

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I need to learn to type faster! LOL!

joe_peters said:

Typical signature of a bad sending unit--next to the OFA--oil filter adapter.

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THE 'OFA' - meaning the collared right angle mount that one might screw a cannister type oil filter into? Hmm.... wonder if it got damaged when the gorillas put a new filter on... i'll snoop around there and see what I can find...

Thanks for the awesome quick replies!

joe_peters said:

I need to learn to type faster! LOL!

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I'm just sitting here in my office waiting for the next post to come up that I might know anything about.


...slow day!

NeXJ said:

THE 'OFA' - meaning the collared right angle mount that one might screw a cannister type oil filter into? Hmm.... wonder if it got damaged when the gorillas put a new filter on... i'll snoop around there and see what I can find...

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yep, and it's very possible that they knocked the wire off, or more likely sheared the connector off of te sender. It's in a vulnerable location when you're using a wrench to take of the filter, it happens when you're careless.

ParadiseXJ said:

I'm just sitting here in my office waiting for the next post to come up that I might know anything about.


...slow day!

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I know how you feel.

I've considered putting the oil pressure sender on an extension tube created from stuff bought at Home Depot, but haven't bothered yet, other stuff keeps breaking and therefore moving to the top of the jeep fix list. I forget if the sender is 1/8 NPT or if it's non-tapered threads, but it shouldn't be too hard for a competent mechanic to mount it further back and out of the way of quicklube all-thumbs mechanics.

Yep... looks like that's it... i feel like a nimrod for not having felt around there before... but I guess I felt a little out of practice with the wrenching and didn't know where to start - or even if that COULD be a problem....

I pulled just a TINY bit on the connector and it came apart at the base of the housing as in the pic below....call me crazy but I'm PRETTY sure that's not the way it's supposed to be...

PS - is there an easier way to upload pics or do you always have to FTP them to a remote account first?

imageshack.us works great. Even gives you prewritten forum code with a clickable thumbnail, though since you mentioned FTP, it's pretty obvious you know what you're doing in that respect :thumbup:

Yeah, that oil pressure sender has been boneheaded for sure.

yep, just as I suspected, someone sheared the connector right off the sender. New sender and you'll be all set.

order one from rock auto, there prices for the oil pressure sensors are like a 1/4 of vato zones. I paid like $50 for mine, but mine was also leaking oil bad when it went.

price at pep boys was pretty good... though I effed up and got a 98 when I should have gotten the 92...! It screws in but the signal's different... the old one I took out had one pin and the new one had two... ugh - the pain of doing an engine swap!