Well I was driving truck today and saw oil pressure gauge needle was jumping does any buddy know why it was doing that!

 

Not enough info.. what year ranger do you have?

If its a newer one say 99+ its probably a bad resistor on the back
of the gauge cluster.. as they are sorta "fake" oil pressure gauges.
basically on/off not a real gauge.

Rand

 

Well, check your oil first, lol.

Rand's correct about those gauges in the later models -- they are just glorified idiot lights and give the same reading from 6 psi up. Below 6 psi the read no pressure at all.

Jumping can be an electrical problem (wiring, connectors, or that resistor he mentioned), or a bad gauge unit itself, or a bad sender (though not really a "sender" -- it's just a switch).

Bad senders are quite common in Rangers, by the way. They're pretty cheap so it's an easy fix if it's that.

 

Ya john thats what I was going to say...

 

Mine has done the same thing since new. Not sure what it is ,but I don't think it's an oil problem. If you watch your tach is your rpms below 500 when this happens? Thats the way mine is. I think the truck is basically stalling. I've noticed mine only does it if i've just jumped on it and then am kind of coasting to a stop.

 

Since winter has arrived (sort of) I noticed on start up, it takes 2-4 minutes for my oil pressure gauge to register anything at all, then it will jump up to where it's supposed to be.

 

Had the same problem with mine, replaced the oil pressure sensor and all is well. $13 CAN part at the dealership....hopefull that's all it is.

Good luck!!

 

my gauge jumped all the time till it jumped over the little bar on the bottom that holds it up in position, now it just sit's there under the bar. Never had a problem with the oil though.

 

mine jumps as well .

 

Mine jumps at low RPM's.

 

i noticed mine did this too.. just started too this winter, never done it before. just a couple flickers and then its done.

 

Lots of Rangers from about 99~2002 have this problem and 99+% of the time, it the sender switch. I would get it fixed right away, though. You need to know absolutely, for sure, that you have oil pressure.

The sender on a 3.0L is in the block buried behind the PS cylinder head.
The 4.0L has it in the side of the block, DS front near the A/C compressor.
Look for a green/white wire on either engine.

 

Oh...also check the connection of your battery terminals. When mine was doing this the terminals were corroded. After cleaning them the problem (and the weird low idle that caused it to flicker) went away.

 

I finally figured out how to use the search feature here and answered my question before I asked it.

My 4.0 SOHC is doing the same thing most of the posts here described. Had this problem with a 4.0 OHV and all it took was a $10 part from Autozone. Hopefully that's all it is with this one, don't have any engine rattle, knock or any other strange noises.

And like many of the responses in this thread and other threads, it only started after a snap of cold weather hit.