oil light

From: "Christopher D. Thompson" <nospam RemoveThis @nospam.nospam>
Subject: Re: 96 Ram 1500 - 318 - Oil light
Date: Sunday, March 09, 2008 5:11 PM

<snip>

How often has the oil been changed? regularly? as in every 3,000 miles?
put a manual gauge on it and run it for long enough to get it acting up,
if the manual gauge shows a problem then drop the pan and look. i suspect
you will find sludge particles floating around in the oil pan, these get
picked up in the oil pump's pickup screen little by little. then you find
a dropping or erratic oil pressure. most common is the dropping oil
pressure. If you find sludge your best course of action is to replace the
engine assy. the next best would be to clean the pan, replace the oil
pump and pickup tube then hope you can last a while before enough of the
sludge up top gets dislodged to start causing you problems again.

When i was working on cars i replaced more than a few engines for this
very thing.

another guess would be that you have a leaking oil pressure sending unit.
I've seen them leak into the plastic housing and after its warmed up good
give all kids of erratic/wrong readings before again this can be proven
with a visual inspection and mechanical oil pressure gauge.

--
Chris

my 97 ram with a 360 gets the oil changed every 10,000 miles with a quality
synthetic and a k&n oil filter. so far i have 282,00 miles and it is still
a daily driver. no smoke, plenty of power, getting low on vacuum pressure
though. i had the same issue with this truck last summer and all i had to
do was change out the oil pressure sending unit.
michael

Oil pressure sending unit huh..... I will see if they can change that as
well.

Thanks
"nunya" <nunya RemoveThis @nunya.net> wrote in message
news:V7aBj.14229$dT.2504@bignews1.bellsouth.net...
>
> From: "Christopher D. Thompson" <nospam RemoveThis @nospam.nospam>
> Subject: Re: 96 Ram 1500 - 318 - Oil light
> Date: Sunday, March 09, 2008 5:11 PM
>
> <snip>
>
> How often has the oil been changed? regularly? as in every 3,000 miles?
> put a manual gauge on it and run it for long enough to get it acting up,
> if the manual gauge shows a problem then drop the pan and look. i suspect
> you will find sludge particles floating around in the oil pan, these get
> picked up in the oil pump's pickup screen little by little. then you find
> a dropping or erratic oil pressure. most common is the dropping oil
> pressure. If you find sludge your best course of action is to replace the
> engine assy. the next best would be to clean the pan, replace the oil
> pump and pickup tube then hope you can last a while before enough of the
> sludge up top gets dislodged to start causing you problems again.
>
> When i was working on cars i replaced more than a few engines for this
> very thing.
>
> another guess would be that you have a leaking oil pressure sending unit.
> I've seen them leak into the plastic housing and after its warmed up good
> give all kids of erratic/wrong readings before again this can be proven
> with a visual inspection and mechanical oil pressure gauge.
>
> --
> Chris
>
> my 97 ram with a 360 gets the oil changed every 10,000 miles with a
> quality synthetic and a k&n oil filter. so far i have 282,00 miles and it
> is still a daily driver. no smoke, plenty of power, getting low on vacuum
> pressure though. i had the same issue with this truck last summer and all
> i had to do was change out the oil pressure sending unit.
> michael
>