My car is going crazy...

[kdjones2000]

This last week has been interesting.

1) Driving down the highway Monday morning heading to work, and all of a sudden the "!" light starts to flicker. Look down and I see the oil pressure light starting to flicker more and more. The oil pressure needle is behaving normally, basically buried at "5", dropping to "3" or so when idling. Still had the problem on the way home, but on the way in the next day, it starts out being lit, then slowly goes away as I get to work. It has continued this intermittent behavior ever since. I am completely confident that I have good oil pressure, as I just did a DE track day on Saturday and I still have an engine. But this brings me to 2) and 3):

2) For those who were reading my upgrade posts, you will recall that after doing all of those things to my car, I had a fuel pump that died right when I was starting it up. That fuel pump lasted about 9 months (Bosch OEM pump, according to the local parts dealer). Well, while blasting around Firebird Int'l Raceway on Saturday, all of a sudden the car started acting like it was starving for fuel, then cut out completely. I had to get towed off the track . I diagnosed it in the pits, and sure enough, the new replacement pump had gone belly up; this time after only ONE MONTH of use.

Have others had such poor performance of Bosch fuel pumps for their cars? Last week I put in a 3 Bar FPR to use with the Guru chips someone here sold me; would that cause premature failure?

3) While staging for my "Last run" at the DE, I noticed that in addition to the Oil Pressure light being lit, I had the following items on the instrument panel lit up: OIL LEVEL WARNING, BRAKE SENSOR and BRAKE FLUID. I went back to the pits and verified that my oil was full, all brake sensors were intact, and I had enough brake fluid. What's going on here?

The same thing just happened today when I started the car up (After swapping out the stupid fuel pump with the LR high volume one I recently got from Gary/gstreev here). I ohmed out all of the wear sensors, and took off the brake fluid cap and moved the float - no change at all in the cluster. So I know that the sensors themselves are fine. The next time I started the car, all of those extra things were NOT lit up, only the oil pressure light.

So my question on this, what's going on here? Anyone has experienced these issues before? How do we get the signal from the brake fluid/wear sensor/oil level to the cluster? I am thinking that maybe I have a break in the wiring harness somewhere. Either that or my cluster is becoming FUBAR.

Thoughts? Sox, where are you?

TIA, Keith

[PAUERMAN]

Have you verified how much fuel pressure your rail is seeing? Sounds like you've got some other problem that is killing your fuel pumps.

For your instrument cluster problems, I'd take a look at the connections / connectors on the back. They possibly may not be seated all the way.

[mikeran]

My sons car had almost the same issues, and Vic is right in his suggestion to check the connections, I took his cluster out cleaned the connections with some contact cleaner and put it all back and it's working correctly now.

[kdjones2000]

Thanks guys.

I have had the cluster out several times over the past year or two, to fix the ODO gear, improve the lights etc. I do know that the retaining levers are good and locked on it, but it might just be oxidation causing the problem.

I will be replacing the turn signal assembly (Left turn doesn't cancel, pretty common from what I can tell) with a better one, so will try the contact cleaner on the cluster then.

As for the fuel pressure, it might just be time to get one of your nice glycerin filled gauges, eh Vic?

Keith

[PAUERMAN]

Originally Posted by kdjones2000

As for the fuel pressure, it might just be time to get one of your nice glycerin filled gauges, eh Vic?

You said it not me!

[kdjones2000]

Well, contact cleaner and a nice white eraser on the contacts didn't change anything. Still getting Oil light on all of the time, with the Brake Fluid, Engine Oil Level and Brake Pads lights coming on every so often.

Any other ideas? I am wondering if the engine wiring harness connection is messed, although everything looks good. Nothing unusual about the cluster that I could tell, either.

EDIT: Well, drove it a bit more, and I really think it is in the cluster itself. If you start the car up, all of those lights are lit up after the initial check out. However, when you rev the engine up they all go away but for the oil pressure light. I think that this is all keying off of the oil pressure light, like there is a resistor or transistor that has gone out of spec and when you rev the engine up the oil pressure light starts to flicker, and makes the others to go out.

Anyone have any experience with those cluster circuits? Either that or I am in the market for another 180 MPH cluster...

[nize]

this really sounds like something sox can diagnose. i know he's been busy with work lately and doesn't check the forum much, maybe try sending him a PM?

[kdjones2000]

Well I think I have solved the mystery of the fuel pump.

The original pump that was in the car had a blue coating on it, with a Bosch PN 0580 464 021. The replacement that the parts guy told me was for my car TWICE was Bosch PN 0580 464 069, which is silver.

After the first one died, I asked them again, they verified again and said it was the right one. They got me a replacement. One month later that one died, and when I asked a THIRD TIME, a new guy there tells me that the 0580 464 069 pump doesn't even match up or crossover to my car at all. Gotta love Import Parts shops.

I ended up putting a used LR high volume pump in this last time, since I had it laying around.

I guess the story has a somewhat happy ending, other than the flat-tow home from the track last Saturday. They ordered the correct pump, which they claimed was $30 more, and did a straight swap with the bad one. Plus, I get another 1Y warranty on it.

On another note: I asked a speedo shop around here what it would cost to fix the cluster. They think (Over the phone) that some parts of the cluster are going "Cold", and wanted about $300 to pull it and fix it

Anyone have a 180MPH cluster around for parts?

Cheers, Keith

[carlege]

you might be better off to look on ebay for the cluster. Glad you got the fuel pump straightened up...

[kdjones2000]

Final update on this thread...

Like someone suggested earlier, it was the oil pressure sender going bad on me. The cluster is fine.

There are two connections on the sender, a "G" and a "Wx". The "G" goes to the needle part of the gauge, while the "Wx" goes to that low pressure light. So these two things seem to operate somewhat independently of each other, as in this situation.

I replaced the sender and everything seems to be working fine

Now it's off to the track next weekend

Cheers, Keith

[carlege]

hind sight being 20/20 would it have been easier to find that out with a Voltage meter?

I thought your whole cluster was going crazy

[kdjones2000]

Originally Posted by carlege

hind sight being 20/20 would it have been easier to find that out with a Voltage meter?

I thought your whole cluster was going crazy

It was, but I guess that those other things were keying off the oil pressure light. That was one of the things throwing me off.

[carlege]

well. good to know that if a warning light is being thrown that your whole cluster can go bad/firtz