chris-the-gerbil
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So after a trip back from the Carpathians I have an oil pressure issue....
Car is a 96 300tdi Auto D1. New radiator fitted, cleaned out the autobox rad (not sure that's relevant but...) and has the original pressure sender as far as I know. Engine has 160,000 on it, bottom end never touched and as far as I know it's had a reasonably hard life.
Oil pressure goes out more or less instantly on engine start (within a second). Sounds good, no problems or nasty knocks.
Running 10W40 semi synth oil which by the time this happened had been in perhaps 5000 miles for the roadtrip.
So..... climbing up a steep and I mean steep 20% mountain pass near the top the oil light is on at idle. Flickeringly so, to more or less all the time. This is after hauling it's fat backside, 3 people and a full load of camping kit all the way up a 2km high mountain - we topped out at about 2200m and the last 5km was more or less constant switchbacks. Rad temperature never moved from it's normal halfway position, as far as I can tell the viscous clutch didn't grab the fan so it was just idling round.
Soon as you give it a whiff of throttle the oil light goes out. after five minutes of standing, it's cooled down and the light is out at idle.
So... what to do? I'm tending towards dropping the sump at next service which is basically now and swapping all the big end shells. Is this worth doing? Is it worth trying to swap the mains too (and is that possible with the crank in situ - one of the end ones looks impossible to access unless the box is off..)
Or could it just be a old tired pressure switch? Checked the wire for chafing it's not that....
Assuming I drop the sump off, what else is there to look at? Pressure relief switch on the oil pump a good idea to service? There is a temperature sensor on the oil gallery as well I presume to send oil through that cooler on the right side of the rad? Don't know much about that.... comments would be welcomes....
Car is a 96 300tdi Auto D1. New radiator fitted, cleaned out the autobox rad (not sure that's relevant but...) and has the original pressure sender as far as I know. Engine has 160,000 on it, bottom end never touched and as far as I know it's had a reasonably hard life.
Oil pressure goes out more or less instantly on engine start (within a second). Sounds good, no problems or nasty knocks.
Running 10W40 semi synth oil which by the time this happened had been in perhaps 5000 miles for the roadtrip.
So..... climbing up a steep and I mean steep 20% mountain pass near the top the oil light is on at idle. Flickeringly so, to more or less all the time. This is after hauling it's fat backside, 3 people and a full load of camping kit all the way up a 2km high mountain - we topped out at about 2200m and the last 5km was more or less constant switchbacks. Rad temperature never moved from it's normal halfway position, as far as I can tell the viscous clutch didn't grab the fan so it was just idling round.
Soon as you give it a whiff of throttle the oil light goes out. after five minutes of standing, it's cooled down and the light is out at idle.
So... what to do? I'm tending towards dropping the sump at next service which is basically now and swapping all the big end shells. Is this worth doing? Is it worth trying to swap the mains too (and is that possible with the crank in situ - one of the end ones looks impossible to access unless the box is off..)
Or could it just be a old tired pressure switch? Checked the wire for chafing it's not that....
Assuming I drop the sump off, what else is there to look at? Pressure relief switch on the oil pump a good idea to service? There is a temperature sensor on the oil gallery as well I presume to send oil through that cooler on the right side of the rad? Don't know much about that.... comments would be welcomes....