Oil Pressure Gauge Reading High

The last couple of weeks my oil pressure gauge has displayed erratic readings; sometimes normal (40-60) at 1600-2000rpm, and then it would "jump' and stay pinned at 3 o'clock all the way high. Since I was changing my oil this weekend, I checked it out. When the wire to the pressure sensor (screwed into the distributor base) is shorted the guage reads around zero. When the circuit is open (wire disconnected) the guage reads all the way high at 3 o'clock. Bought a new sender($15 at Advance Auto Parts), took about 5 min to wrap threads with teflon tape, remove the old and put in the new. On my trip from NJ to Boston Sunday night it read fine in the 40-65 range.

FSM has no details about sender(that I could find), but job is simple.

XJ Danny
'90 Laredo, Bilsteins, FlowMaster but otherwise stock for 184Kmi.

Hey Danny,

I had the same prob about 6 months ago. First pull the plug (Connector) off the oil sending unit and clean it. If that doesn't work than you might have to replce the plug with a new one. On mine that is what I had to do, the wire had broken right as it exits the plug. I used an environmental splice to hook the new one up. When it reads off the sclae like you are saying, it's pretty much saying you have an 'Open' in the circuit. Mine happend because of all the oil changes, it's just in the wrong place, right on top of the filter. Bad design.


Alex