started up the rig this morning and the oil pressure gage didnt move, reved it a little and shut it off, and started it a few times, finally gave it a good rev and the gage jumped to normal, hasn't done it again. suggestions?

 

Gremlin. you know you aren't supposed to feed them after midnight.

 

what the **** are you talkin bout

 

You've never seen the movie "gremlins"?
its me saying it was probably a fluke, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

 

tru tru, u thinkin it's a gage issue?

 

nah, if it acts up again, i'd look into it more.

 

It may be a bad sending unit.

 

connected to the oil pump?

 

Your talking about the gauge in the dash correct?

 

yup

 

it works fine now, just gave me a bit of trouble this mornin. hasnt done it since, no really worries, unless i should be

 

I wouldnt be worried about it. Mine acted the same way before I replaced it. On cold mornings it would jump back and forth from being no pressure to pressure before the truck warmed up.

 

Pull the cam syncro and inspect the teeth on the drive gear , just to be on the safe side.

 

no clue where that is or how to pull it. hasn't done it since, so i'm not worried, think it was just a lil frozen

 

Same




Oh and yeah since you have an older 3.0, if you haven't replaced the Cam Syncro Sensor you should do that before you loose oil pressure mid-commute one day and kill the truck.

 

how do you pull the sensor

 

update: did it again this morning, but instead of me reving it up and the needle jumping right up, it jumped about a third of the way up and had trouble stayin there, moved up when i revved it, and after a minute jumped to normal. it was another cold night out last night. i'm thinkin it might be the sensor?

 

The oil pressure sending unit is nothing more than a normally open switch that closes with about 7PSI of oil pressure. So, your gauge is going to read ZERO pressure when there is no pressure, and go to about half-scale when you have 7PSI of oil pressure or more.

I doubt that it is the cam sensor synchro, the oil pressure switch is normally intermittent like this when it goes out. The synchro normally starts making a squealing sound before it locks up to take teeth off the drive gear. When this happens, you never regain oil pressure again.

 

so any clue to what would cause it to waiver around a third of the way on the guage

 

I kinda have the same issue have a 99 ranger 3.0 flex... sometimes the oil gauge will jump high/low randomly most of the time when im hitting brakes and sometimes when stuck in traffic.. mine has higher miles too.. i wonder if its a faulty sensor... still tring to figure out my Cel prob also installing new egr today maybe fix both :D

 

A resistive switch

 

Not sure how to do the Cam Synchro sensor. I know it's on the back of the engine though between the block and the firewall.

 

One month ago i got a 2002 Ranger 3.0L V6 100k mills. Oil Gage is flipping, some times it makes squeaking noise in the engine, when i press the gas pedal, and it seems like misfire (loosing power) most of the times in the mornings. Some times oil Gage flipping for about 5-10min and after it turns off, if i keep driving it start to knock inside of engine, if i turn ignition off and on again it works fine.

How did i FIX it!

First of all:
1) i replaced all spark plugs $12, replaced oil and oil filter, sending unit (located on firewall side) $9, cam sensor synchro $18 from autozone - it help a little but not quite
Two days after same story:
I pulled over, opened the hood pulled gas cable to increase RPM to find out where squeaking noise comes out from and it was a cam synchronize.
2) I replaced cam synchronize $46 from autozone (Mark position of the old one and place your new one in the same position) it helped a lot, not shaking my truck anymore.
Few days after oil Gage start to flip again and it went off so i pulled over for a few seconds and started engine again - fine.
I knew some thing is wrong so i bought a motor flush and flushed the engine oil gage start to jump and motor knock.
3) I took off starter and pulled off the oil pan to check the oil pump and it was stuck with trash. I cleaned it with kerosene, and put everything back, now it drives great.

So I had 2 problems.
1 Oil pump did not pump right
2 Cam synchronize bearing was bad.


Good Luck

 

If you only paid $46 for a cam syncronizer then expect it to go bad in under 20,000 miles. At that price it must be a Dorman brand and they are known to fail quite early.
Dorman is made in China and uses inferior steel in the drive gear.
Better to get the syncro from Ford.

 

Will see in the future if it will go bad i'l replace it, it takes about 10 min.
I didn't know that.
Thank.