oil pressure gauge question

I just bought a 98 Explorer Sport. The oil pressure gauge reads exactly dead center all the time the engine is running, whether at 600RPM or

4000RPM. Is this normal? This is my first Ford and I every other car I've owned showed some fluctuation in oil pressure with varying engine speed.

Thanks in advance for any response!

Red

Reply to
redbaroneIII
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It is that way by design, it is really more like an idiot light, indicating you have some oil pressure, not how much..

Reply to
351CJ

As I understand the gauge is just a mechanical "idiot light type indicator." One voltage input is provided by the sender which the gauge reads as "somewhere in the middle."

Reply to
Bill

Thanks! I was really puzzled by this one. So now my first project will be to install some "real" gauges 8*)

Red

Reply to
redbaroneIII

If you google around you will find that some people have modified the idiot light gauge to work as a real gauge.

-Fred W

Reply to
Fred W

Fred -

I've Googled up a storm, and I'm not finding it. Can you give us a pointer - I would really like to do this.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Jeffrey

Here:

or here (same place):

-Fred W

Reply to
Fred W

Many thanks, Fred, I appreciate the pointer. I think the same bamboozling is going on with the voltmeter and water temp gauge, too. They never seem to vary from a fixed position. Say, doesn't Ford charge extra for the optional "gauge package"?

Bill

---------------------- Fred W wrote:

Reply to
Bill Jeffrey

Voltmeter - yes. Same deal. Water temp - Not exactly. AFAIR the water temp shows a "buffered" version of an actual temperature reading. You will notice that it actually does ramp up slowly as the engine warms. But once the temperature is within a "normal" range the needle will stay straight up. It will then have to seriously overheat or cool way down before the needle moves from the complete vertical.

They say the idea (with all of these gauges) was to prevent people from worrying about (and especially from requesting warranty service) for "normal" fluctuations. I'm surprised they did not consider doing the same with the speedometer?

-Fred W

Reply to
Fred W

You sure, Fred? I thought the voltmeter was real, at least on my 92.

I've actually interviewed Ford engineers and asked about the oil pressure thing, which is the same on virtually all Fords.. The pressure fluctuates so much, they say, it really doesn't tell you anything. At least one regular here who installed a real oil pressure gauge says he wouldn't bother doing it again. I wouldn't worry about having a real gauge... your Explorer will break down altogether soon enough, with or without an oil pressure gauge :O)

Reply to
Anthony Giorgianni

Damn... next you're going to tell me I should check the oil level occasionally.... They put that friggin' dipstick in there and now everyone expects me to use it??? BLASPHEMY!!!!

The engineers have told us that there are certain things that *should* be done to ensure that we extract the maximum troublefree miles from our cars. There are things that the engineers tell us we *shouldn't* do if we expect to get as many troublefree miles from our cars as we'd like....... Time and time again, accountants, computer wienies and university grads (would you like fries with that?) are consistent in their efforts to re-invent the wheel.... trying hard to vary from tried and true practice and, somewhere along the line, falling far short of their desires.

Most premature catastrophic failures are the result of operator inattention or poor maintenance practice. The modern auto is one of the few places we can save money be spending it.... we just have to spend it soon enough....

Reply to
Jim Warman

No ,the voltmeter is real. It *does* move.

Reply to
Big Bill

If you are talking about explorers I have no data, but I know the late model mustangs have a phony voltmeter and oil pressure gauge, and a half phony water temp gauge. Neither show anything but dead center no mater what the actual reading once its higher then some very low trigger level. As the other poster said, the water temp is a real gauge till it hits 90C, then it stops moving even if the temp goes to

102C. That's the highest mines ever gone. Presumably it will spike up at some very high temp, my guess would be at around 120C. Even when cranking the starter the voltmeter stays rock steady at mid scale.

-- Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts:

"What, sir, is the use of militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. . . Whenever Government means to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise a standing army upon its ruins." -- Debate, U.S. House of Representatives, August 17, 1789

Reply to
AZGuy

If so, this is the first time I've ever heard of that. Our Explorer is a 92, hardly new. But the Expeditiuon is a 99, and the gauges are all real except the oil pressure. I have never seen any posts to any groups or newsletters saying the newer ones are different.

Reply to
Big Bill

I think it depends on which models have the electronic dash. The Mustangs got it in 99 but I don't think the Exp did till later, if ever. The dash looks "analog" but it's really a digital dash driving analog gauges. My guess is it's cheaper to use gauges then digital readouts. You can put these digital dashs in "diagnostic" mode and then the trip odometer digital display shows the actual "gauge" values. Many of them appear to have a digital range of 0 to 255 which I believe is an 8 bit (or byte) digital resolution (I'm not stating it well). From what little I've read, the dash is even tied into the computer in such a way that it would be hard to swap a dash from one vehicle to the other without having the ford computer system to hook it too and reset it's parameters,i.e. a V6 dash into a V8 car, or an ABS dash into a non-ABS car.

-- Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts:

"What, sir, is the use of militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. . . Whenever Government means to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise a standing army upon its ruins." -- Debate, U.S. House of Representatives, August 17, 1789

Reply to
AZGuy

I pretty sure all the gaugues in my '03 Expedition are basically "go" / "no go" gauges and not true analog gauges. The temperature gauge does ramp up till it hits mid scale, but then it never moves. Likewise the oil and battery gauges seem glued in place once the truck is running. This is defeinitely a change from my '97 Expedition where only the oil pressure gauge was a 2 poition gauge.

I think many of the people who get upset about the two position gauges don't realize how crappy the old electrical analog gauges were. I have a Dodge truck that came with an electrical analog oil pressure gauge. The damn thing scared the crap out of me all the time. I finally installed a aftermarket gauge (analog non-electrical) and discovered there was not a problem. The battery and water temperature gauges in my 1992 F150 move all over the place all the time. However, they are not calibrated, and as far as I can tell they are almost meaningless unless they go full scale one way or the other. A gauge that is not calibrated is no better than a go / no go gauge. By the way, as far as I can tell, the water temperature gauge in my 2003 Saturn is positioned by the PCM and is not actually displaying the actual water temperature. When you start the car it moves off "C" to the same place everytime and then slowly moves up to the exact same "normal" place everytime no matter what time of year or what you are actually doing.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

C. E. White wrote: [snip]

Perhaps if you only want to use the gauge to get the actual water temp, voltage, etc., that would be true.

However, even a non-calibrated analog gauge is quite useful if you take note of its normal characteristics. When the gauge shows a change from how it usually behaves, that can be very helpful in alerting you that something has happened and should be investigated. These changes can be subtle and not severe enough to activate a go/no-go idiot light or one of the so-called 'idiot gauges' under discussion.

My 1993 Aerostar has a non-calibrated temperature gauge and non-calibrated voltmeter (neither of which is an 'idiot gauge'). I have used both of these gauges to correctly diagnose the need to fix cooling system and charging system problems before they became hard failures.

Reply to
Mark Olson

Maybe so; mine is a 99. But I haven't seen anything about this even on the Expedition Digest. On my Expedition, the voltmeter and water temp gauges don't move much, but that's because the systems are working in good order. When idling at night, with lights on, the turn signals will cause the voltmeter to fluctuate, and the power windows do too. So I seriously doubt that's a go/no go gauge. As for water temp gauge, the Expedition has never had a coolling 'misadventure', so the needle stays put after warmup.

Reply to
Big Bill

For sure the Voltmeter and Water Temperature gauges on my

1997 Expedition were true analog gauges that moved in response to changes in the system being monitored. But for my 2003, they don't seem to be. And for the 2003, the wiring diagram indicates they are driven by the PCM, so I am reasonably confident they are now good / bad indicators.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

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