Good evening gentleman.
As i was driving up a fairly steep hill this evening I noticed that my oil gauge was abnormally low just above 1 bar.Just at that moment I fully pressed on the accelerator and the gauge went down to "0".Needless to say I immediately turned off the engine and pulled over to the side of the road.I paused for a moment to try and figure out what could be wrong here.Got out of the car opened the hood and checked the engine oil,all was good took the flashlight out and looked under the car to see if I was loosing any oil and all was good there too.
So I restarted the engine and listened very carefully if there was any engine knock and any other abnormal noise....but nothing.
So I continued for home hopping I wouldn't get stranded somewhere,I noticed that under hard acceleration the oil gauge would go up to maybe 2 bars but as soon as i would settle to a normal speed the gauge would go down to "0" again.Well I made it home witch is about 20 miles from that hill,I let the engine cool down and re checked the oil again and the level is right on the mark!!
What the HELL is going on?
Could it be the oil pressure switch or sending unit gone wacko?
Please help me anyone...
Regards
Dan

The guage is mechanical. The hose could be kinked. The guage could be messed up. Your oil pump may be failing. Check to see if your pan has a big dent in it.

There is no dent in the oil pan at all!
Where is the oil gauge hose connected at the engine?

It is connected to the oil filter housing. Either your line could be kinked or clogged, guage bad, or your oil pump chain broke, or pump screen is clogged. Might have to pull your lower pan off just for piece of mind.
Get some more ideas from others first, as I'm not the sharpest pin in the cushion on internal engine issues......

__________________
Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

Can I assume that I still do have pressure since there is no abnormal noise comming from the engine.After all the car did make it back and it was about 20 miles or so.

Jimmy would there be some sort of noise if the chain was broken?

WHat type of car do you have, one of your other posts suggested that you have a SD,

If you have a SD then you do have an electrical oil pressure sender and they can go bad.

__________________
1984 Euro 300SDC, (4spd standard)
1986 Toyota Landcruiser Diesel HJ60 5spd X2

Gone but not forgotten (some sold, some stripped)
1983 300 SD, 1985 300 SD, 1983 240D, 1986 300 SDL, 1985 300 SDL, 1983 300 D, 1984 300 D, 1985 300SD, 1987 300 SDL, 1983 300 SD, 1985 300 TD Euro, 1983 380SEC, 1990 300 D, 1987 300D, 1982 300D, 1982 300D, 1994 E420, 1987 300 TD, 1987 300 D, 1984 300 D

Excellent point. I had W123 tunnel vision......

Not if chain fragments were nice and just landed down in the pan. No noise cause there is nothing driving oil pump sprocket.
This is putting the cart well out in front of the horse, especially if this is in reference to an SD with elect. oil pressure signal....
Out of my league on that one.

No wonder we keep harping on updated signatures, or signatures at all......

__________________
Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

Yes its a SD 1983.
I just got back from outside to restart the engine.All is good I mean no noise or engine knock,so this could be an electrical issue then ?

I can't swear to it, but I seem to remember that SDs have the electrical sender on the back of the oil filter housing.
I'm not sure where I put my shop manual discs since I moved, though, so I can't say further.

Maybe check for a loose or corroded connector at that point, or a frayed wire into the connector?

__________________
-Josh
Testing the cheap Mercedes axiom, one bolt at a time...

FWIW the electrical sender crapped out on my RX. when it first happend i freaked out about the pressure. but 60,000 miles later the same engine is still running and still showing no oil pressure. so IF it is just the sending unit i would not worry too much. i would say as long as there are no odd noises you are fine

it also showed the same symptoms as yours. oil pressure would look fine then drop away then come back to like half then go away. it was odd and scary. i had just replaced the engine when all this started happening.

__________________
-Trevor

OBK #12
1980 300SD 333,XXX miles - Totaled
1986 Mazda RX-7 212,XXX miles - impounded and auctioned off
2005 Jeep Liberty CRD Limited 33,000- SEGR, Provent, Fumoto

Yes, with no noise and what you've mentioned, I would definitely suspect an electrical issue. On the SD, the oil pressure sender is on the back of the oil filter housing. Also, check your eng-chassis grounding strap. Fluctuating guages is one of the symptoms I noticed before having starting problems............found a loose grounding strap.

__________________
Sam

84 300SD 350K+ miles ( Blue Belle )

How many miles on this engine? You could have a failing oil pump, don't run it until you figure out whats going on. If you really do have less then 1.5 bar under load you are doing damage, the pistons are not getting cooled.

There is a VDO sensor under the oil filter, I don't know the thread size off the top of my head. You need to hook a mechanical guage up and see what you have. Or you could just swap out the sensor and see what it does.


Remember you need 3bar by 3k rpm, if not shut down or get off turbo boost.

__________________
1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

One quick check is to install a mechanical guage in place of the sender temporarily to see what it reads. I would not be driving it until you've determined the cause of the problem.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Take the oil filler cap off and look inside the valve cover while the engine is running. You should be able to determine whether you have oil pressure or not. And if that is not convincing, loosen the oil filter lid!!!