Ok I stripped out the oil drain bolt on my 1990 civic, not extremely bad but it it leaking a little bit. I was driving it yesturday for about 5 minutes, got on the freeway and the oil light started flickering. I figured it was electrical because it was flickering, after a while of it flickering it came on and stayed on, if i turn the car off and turn it back on teh light will be off, I drive it and the same thing, flickers then comes on solid. The oil level is good and the oil is leaking slowly.

Could I be losing oil pressure via the drain bolt area on the oil pan to cause the oil light to come on?

TIA

 

No. The oil in the pan isn't under pressure, so all it does it leak. If it leaks fast enough to drain all your oil, then your pressure drops when the oil pump starts sucking air.

Gotta look for another reason for the pressure loss. Sludge or dirt blocking the oil pickup inside the pan? Maybe the pressure switch for the warning light is flaky?

 

Has anybody else experienced this? I thaught it was a faulty sensor but it happens fairly consistantly.

 

I dropped the pan tonight and sprayed teh pick up out with carb cleaner, I practically used a whole can. When I first took the pan off I noticed the screen did look pretty gunked up, so i proceed to put teh oil pan back on and changet the oil. I also got an oversized drain bolt and installed that to fix the leak.

It's 9pm and I just took the car for a drive up the freeway into town and back, probably 15 miles total. Everything was fine until I get to my road and teh f*%$ing light starts blinking again. By the time I parked teh car the light was on solid. I'm out of ideas and a little bummed out. Any further advice would be appreciated.

The light was coming on prior to this consistantly about 8-10 minutes into my drive the last couple days.

 

Have you checked the oil pressure yet? Id use a scan-tool or something and check it.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by HondaTom &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Have you checked the oil pressure yet? Id use a scan-tool or something and check it.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I not have access to such a tool, is there an easier way to do it?

 

What are the odds of this actually being a faulty sensor or electrical problem?

...anybody?

 

check the connection going to the sensor itself

 

It's a normally closed pressure switch, so a loose wire would NOT make it light up. You're looking for worn insulation & bare wire shorting to ground.

Maybe you can borrow/rent an oil pressure gauge. NOT a scan tool, since that's not really a gauge sender. The ECU has no oil pressure information.

I hate to say this, I should have mentioned before you took off the pan... When you were looking at the oil pickup, look for places where the pump can suck air. Like where the oil pickup connects up to the pump?