Oil pump issues?

[BLUEnoEQ]

94 KLZE swapped: The oil pressure on the dash gauge is reading a little high and then once it's warm (around the "O",) it still reads a little high, but idling for 15 seconds or so then the gauge cuts and drops flat. The oil is clean and full, there are no funny sounds coming from the engine, no lifter tick, no FGS noise, no knocking or tapping. I do hear a sound when giving it a little gas to get it off idle, a click and then the needle pops back up into the normal range.

A little while back the car overheated a little and blew the small reservoir fill tank, I found no underlying cause for that. It is down on power, again, I'm thinking ignition issues for that (distributor maybe, 95 though and 95 ECU ATM.) Yesterday I took the cat off to get a look inside. It's a high flow and it looked as good as it did when it went on, I can see light through it, so it went back on. Timing looks good... top pulleys I can see clearly, can't get a good look at the crank to see if that's perfect though.

This car has had the oil gauge do something similar in the past before the swap and with the original pressure sender. That was 8 years ago and the second owner told me about it. Still freaked me out when it happened randomly. I have 2 DEs I can get a pump from.

[Silverprobe]

The stock oil senders on these engines just don't seem to hold up. I installed an aftermarket gauge that I could plug into the oil sender housing to see what the actual pressure was when experiencing similar issues and it's always been the stock sender causing the low dash gauge reading. At 150 k miles, I'm on my third OPSU at this point.

Not saying that's what's for sure happening in your case, but utilizing a mechanical gauge to check actual oil pressure would be my first suggestion to determine if you actually have a low oil pressure issue.

[BLUEnoEQ]

Thanks for the second opinion on it. I drove it a couple times today. It seemed fine so far as running. My pressure seems to go high when I drive it harder, middle for cruising and such. Does anyone think it'd be worth swapping my 95 cluster and sender in. The 95 is getting another engine and this one is already swapped so it won't screw up mileage count.

[j-dogg]

OPSU is a known issue for the PGT and I believe this to be from where the sending unit is located. On the base model it's on the very back of the block, an absolute pain in the dick to get to but it stays clean and unless your VGC leaks like it isn't there you'll never have a problem with it, though my OPSU on the base started leaking oil at 255K miles.

On the PGT it's located right on the damn oil filter housing, which makes it a cinch to change but leaves it open to damage, intense heat from it's proximity to the front header and oil leaks from the VGC and the oil filter housing, mine is barely visible from all the oil leaked from my VGC.

The OPSU has an electrical connector on it and vibration combined with age and oxidation may be knocking it loose periodically

[BLUEnoEQ]

Well, I've been driving the car. Lightly at first, it seems to be fine. Lately the gauge has only been acting up on startup. The real mystery atm is where I got the OPSU from. The original one from my 94 broke the tab off. The engine in the car came with a 95 and up switch style on it, and my 95 still has it's OPSU sw on it. It was in good condition and I even had an original cover shield, I remember degreasing the cover before putting the opsu on. Don't get old. Well... If I can remember where all the bolts go to my Jeep that should be going together in the next few days. Finally fixed the transmission selector I broke off last year today. Some real maintenance is about to happen.
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