Oil Pressure Sender Repairs Itself?

[Ilan]

When I bought my 87 911 a couple of months ago, I experienced the erratic oil pressure guage problem whereby it was showing oil pressure way to high. Went through all the threads, checked out the wiring & guage, and showed resistance between the oil sender & ground, but continued to have the problem. So I had my wrench order a new sender, and before I got a chance to get in to get it installed, (don't want to fool around with potential oil leak) my guage is now showing oil pressure smoothly, and exactly where it should be at about 1 bar per 1K RPM, once the engine is at operating temp. The car sat for over a month before I purchased it, and I'm wondering if my almost daily driving has "unstuck" the sender. My question is whether anyone else has had a similar situation where the sender simply seems to have become "unstuck". I didn't do anything to the car that would have taken care of a ground short. The only thing I did was provide power to the antenna amp because the PO forgot to do so when he installed a new stereo. I'm using about a quart of oil every 600 miles, and so far have put in 3 quarts of Valvoline racing 20-50. Don't know what kind of oil the car had before, (its not synthetic) and haven't yet had an oil change since the car had just had one before I purchased it. Any ideas?

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Ilan Shanon
87 911 white Targa
98 H.D. Roadking
99 H.D. Springer Softail
00 Jeep TJ Sport

[Rick Lee]

I still have the exact same problem you had. Mine is also an '87 Carrera. My oil pressure stays at 5 almost all the time. Last Sat. I turned the small black bushing around the sending unit, as it appeared loose -- it did not tighten, just spun. After that, my needle would drop back down when I was at red lights. But it never went below 3 bar. Any kind of driving and it stayed at 5 bar. I have put 1400 miles on the car and only added 3/4 qt. of oil to it -- and I have a small leak at the lower cam cover. So I doubt my pressure is really that high. I'm thinking of having my wrench test it with an external gauge in two weeks. The curiosity is killing me though.

[Roland Kunz]

Hello

Sounds like the electric contact was the reason for the malfunktion.

The black bushing sounds like the connector housing to me. Have you seen the little Mercedes Star on it ?

Grüsse

[john walker's workshop]

they loose their ability to ground sometimes. if you use a jumper wire and ground the case they often work.