Oil Pressure?

[Blue71]

Bronco is runing great, but I noticed my oil pressure gauge seems to alway be between 10-20 no matter what the RPM's. It has been this way for a good while so I feel like it is bad. Where do i start to fix this. Oil Sender? Gauge? I have never messed with one from a EB, only a Heep and it had a copper tube that went from the sender to the gauge. Are they all the same.

Thanks Much,

Blue71

 

[flint_knapper]

my '74 is electric unit. mounts near the oil filter on an extender, 1 wire.

 

[67ster]

I would put a QUALITY manual gauge in it .

 

[cobranco]

I put an Autometer guage on mine and the pressure reads 15lbs different than with the Bronco guage.

 

[Bart]

If, after you put in a know quality gauge and you still have low oil pressure you may have the same problem I had when I bought a '69 Mustang Mach 1 w/ a 302. Ford small blocks have three oil galley plugs behind the cam gear inside the timing chain cover. All or part of those three plugs (look like very small freeze plugs) came out. This let the oil run back into the pan instead of forcing it up to the lifters. I too had no oil pressure on stock gauges. After I pulled the chain cover and cam gear, I taped and screwed in threaded plugs with lock tight. I also rebuilt the engine because I didn't want to trust the condition of the bearings after that. Good Luck to you

I just had a thought to check to see if the plugs are in or not remove one of the valve covers and see if there's oil running out of the push rods and down on to the lifters while it's running. That would tell you that the plugs are in forcing the oil up to the valve train.

 

[rstgermaine]

Buy a cheap mechanical one and temporarily hook it up. At idle you should have 20-25 psi and it should jump to 40-60 when you rev it up. If you pressure is good, replace the sender (about 9 bucks at any parts store). If the pressure is indeed low, try the oil pump. After that, a major teardown is in order.

One thing I forgot to mention - when you take the sender off to put the fitting on for the mechanical gauge, turn the engine over for 5-10 seconds to let some oil squirt out of the hole in the block. I had a truck with cronic low oil pressure and it turned out to be a bad sensor AND crud blocking the hole in the sensor.

 

[Explore74]

in a stock or close to stock engine you only need 10 psi at 1000 rpm and 5 psi for every 1000 rpm increase. Therefore, if you actuallly make 30-40psi at high rpm, the oiling system won't give you any grief. Heck, on a stocker, to get it wound up high enough to cause damage due to inadequate oiling, pistons would be changing holes anyway, oiling would be the least of your worries.

 

[BwoncoHowie]

You will probably have to tinker with it. I would try these first:

Key on engine off, Does the gauge read anything? should read low or nothing.If not then your sender may not be working properly.


Unplug the sender before you start the motor, What does the gauge do now? should read low or nothing. If not then your gauge may not be working.


Then try grounding the sender wire teporarily. The gauge should peg now and the gauge is acting normally. If not then your gauge or related wiring may not be working.

Now do a visual on the sender. Is it leaking oil anywhere? If so replace the sender.

Electric factory gauges will not be as responsive or as accurate as a mechanical or aftermarket electrical oil pressure gauge. The factory gauge will only tell you if the oil pressure is within normal operating ranges. Hope this helps. BH