Why is my oil pressure gauge doing this....?

[IanMc]

Hi all,

I need your help please.

My oil pressure gauge is doing strange things and I would like to stop it doing those strange things... 

When I first got the car and got it running, all it ever did was ping over to max and stay there. Then after playing around with the wires and connections it when to the start position when I turned on the ignition, then pinged over to max again as soon as I started the engine.

After an oil and filter change a week or two back, it has decided to kind of half work. This video shows what it is doing at idle, then when it it revved a bit:

 

 

Any ideas?

Should I just leave it and see if it fixes itself?

Could something inside be a bit gummed up after sitting around for about 19-20 years?

As always, your help and advice is greatly appreciated.

Edited July 21, 2019 by IanMc

[hoobby]

The pressure  will ping to max if the sender is disconnected I have had this myself clean all the connectors sounds like the connection is good enough until the engine start and shakes it about.

[cam.in.head]

As my Hoobys says above,the gauge will spring to max ( and may need a swift tap on the dash to realease it !)if the gauge wire is either disconnected or even loose or a bad connection in any way. The heat down there does a good job of making things brittle.pity you didn't do it whilst the exhaust was off it would have bee easier for access.

if you want to do a perfect job remove the two leads. And replace them with something heatproof like you would find in an electric fire for example.If there's any way you can get the sender unit off with a short spanner all the better but at least make sure the lugs are rust free and tight if not.

its a common problem area ,the sender unit itself is fairly reliable thou 

[IanMc]

Cheers lads, I will try to investigate during the week and report back.