Hey Guys today on the way to work my oil light came on. I pulled over immediatly and turned off the car. I have a 98 LS and the oil was at the lowest hole in the dipstick. Anyway I put two quarts in it and by the time I got home the light flickered again. The level is fine though. My question is do I have a bad sensor? I don't even know how it works, is it telling me the level is low or the oil pressure is low? This sucks, I'm not even at 3000 miles since my last change. Also I found some sludge around the base of the dipstick so I assume the oil was leaking from there. Thanks.

 

The Oil light tells you if you have oil pressure. Meaning if you oil pump goes out, the oil light will come on since there's no pressure.

 

Yeah, after posting I realized it has to be pressure based and not level based. That light scares the crap out of me! Its weird because it doesn't keep on flashing, it doesn't stay on, it just starts flickering or flashing once in awhile. I'm not even sure if it would work but I let the car idle for like 30min when I got home so I could try my scanner when the light came on but it never came on.
Is it common for an oil pump to go out? My car has 80K miles on it. If not do you guys have any other ideas? I searched and the only thing I saw that sounded possible is the sending unit. If its not that then I don't have any ideas.

 

I noticed my charging light flicker when the bottom bolt of my alternator came off. The alternator was crooked when I popped the hood.

 

The oil pump should still be OK, but you may want to do an oil pressure test or buy a pressure gauge for the car. If the pressure checks out then I would check the pressure switch and check the wiring making sure everything is tight and all grounded out. A flickering light normally means faulty wiring. Good luck with it

 

Thanks for the advice/replies. I guess I will buy an oil pressure guage, that settles it for what guage to stick in the pillar mount pod I guess. I got the oil changed again today, I'll get the guage Friday and cross my fingers. I'll do another search but since I already started this post if anyone knows of a good link with direction on how to install an oil pressure guage please let me know. Thanks again.

 

i Had a motor that sit 4 about 2 years and i put it in a friends car. It had oil at the bottom of the dipstick and he had the same problem. U might want 2 take the oil pan off and check the oil strainer, Is the car lowered? if so is the oil pan dented in the middle? Could be blocking the strainer.

 

Really the only problem you'll run into is getting adapter to screw the sender into the block. Make sure you get the correct thread adapter. Do some searching and I'm sure you can find it.

 

1/8 BSPT