Oil Troubles

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06-19-2003 | 05:17 PM

Rick280zxt2

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Posts: n/a

Oil Troubles

Here's the deal. I can't keep steady oil pressure. When I accelerate, the pressure goes down, when I get off the gas the pressure usually goes up but not always. When in second gear (automatic) pressure is usually ok, but it is not rpm related because at 4500 rpm in drive it can't hold pressure either. Even when it seems to be working correctly the pressure isn't what it used to be. Has anyone ever seen anything similar to this or know what is going on before I just start relpacing parts? I'm stumped. Thanks

06-20-2003 | 05:37 AM

lifegrddude

Externally Wastegated

Joined: Oct 2001

Posts: 1,220

From: San Diego

How is your oil level? Believe me I had popping on my car and a low oil pressure that was due to low oil! The previous owner did an oil change but never put a copper ring for the drain plug on and it was leaking out oil.

Yeah, fixed that up real quick. Other than that, I'd say bad oil pump.
John 82ZXT

06-20-2003 | 01:41 PM

Bleach

The Evil Twin

Joined: Mar 2001

Posts: 9,296

From: Seattle, WA

Its the oil pressure sender unit. Same thing happened to my car. I bought a new sender unit for the side of the block ($50) and the oil pressure reads correctly now.

06-20-2003 | 03:49 PM

Rick280zxt2

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Hey thanks I'll have to try that. You said that the pressure on yours READS right now, is that to say that the gauge was reading low but actual pressure was ok?

06-21-2003 | 09:15 AM

lteberle

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My 82zx N/A did the same thing with the gage, good at idle (most of the time) drops during acceleration, and sometimes comes back up. I replaced the sending unit, fixed it right up. Z's are famous for bad sending units.

06-23-2003 | 06:51 PM

Rick280zxt2

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good to know thanks

06-24-2003 | 09:57 AM

Bleach

The Evil Twin

Joined: Mar 2001

Posts: 9,296

From: Seattle, WA

what you said is correct. The gauge was reading wrong, but the whole time the actual oil pressure was where it was supposed to be. Both 280zx's I've had had a problem with the oil pressure sending unit. I swapped the new unit from one to the other just to see if that was the problem. It was, but I was planning to sell the other ZX and decided not to invest $50 into the sender. I told the new owner of my troubleshooting so they could fix the reading if they wanted to.