84 CJ oil pressure

[Guest]

297000

Not sure what the problem is - my oil pressure gauge reads fine untill I've been driving for a while. Then at idle the needle drops to zero, almost as if the gauge is losing power. Oil level is fine. I've heard that the gauges are pieces of junk and not to believed, any suggestions?

 

[Jeeplover]

298000

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2[/IMG]Originally posted by beebs:
Not sure what the problem is - my oil pressure gauge reads fine untill I've been driving for a while. Then at idle the needle drops to zero, almost as if the gauge is losing power. Oil level is fine. I've heard that the gauges are pieces of junk and not to believed, any suggestions?</font></BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR></TD></TR></TABLE>


A while back we had this same discussion here. I don't think any definite conclusion was ever stated. I will take a stab at this. One of the theories were that the oil pumps in Jeeps were high volume/low pressure items. Another was the possibility of return channels being partially blocked and the sump getting low as a result. Haven't heard the gauge theory but is interesting. My '81 CJ-7 runs about 20-22 after warm at any running speed but, drops down to around 7-10 during idle. This made me really nervous at first and I watched the oil level like a hawk. With 113,000+ miles on the engine I was a bit paranoid. After a while I stopped the worrying and figured as long as I had oil pressure while running and a hint during idle things were OK. Just my .02.

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