Sorry if this has already been asked I searced around and obviously theres tons of threads on oil pressure issues but mines a little different.
I recenltly bought a 97 Dakota 4x4, 318. The guy I bought it from said it was just the pressure sensor that went bad. Ok so I went out bought sensor and put it in, before hand it wouldn't really read over 20 and it would just drop off to 0 but the engine ran fine and no noises. I put in the new sensor and started it and it jumped right up to about 60 lbs cold. went for a drive and it dropped right off, so at this point I was scared I bought a truck with bad oil pressure. Next thing I did was I hooked up a manual guage at cold start I got 60lbs I let it idle for probably 15 mins let the oil thin out a little and it maybe dropped 5 lbs but it was holding fine nothing like before, and I forgot to mention that I started the truck before I put on the manual gauage just to see what the dash read and it said 0. My question is, is there a common ground or something somewhere that goes bad? I even took out the cluster to replace a bulb and all looks good back there?.

Thanks in advance
Darin

 

hmm....bad oil pressure guage???

Has it thrown any codes??

 

No oil pressure codes or anything of that type, I got 02 sensor and misfire. The gauge does go up a little bit when you turn it on, goes up to zero..[:@]

 

at least the good news is that it sounds like its just the gauge and not the engine.

 

It's the gauge,.. Kinda common. The stock-gauges are crap at best.

 

soooo...try a new bezel?

 

I would check the wiring on the connector 1st... if the old sensor blew oil up the wiring, I was told that will cause problems with the gauge. dont have 1st hand experience with it since when I swapped mine, the connector was clean. there was oil in the bottom of the sensor though so the worst was already beginning.