Did you ever figure out what the problem was?

 

see post 15

 

Happy new year, losers.

Well, I've owned this truck long enough to replace the same sensors a few times over. The Mopar oil pressure switch that I put in back in 2015 has failed. I keep good records and can tell you that it has exactly 80.5K on it.

Now peep this.... it failed immediately within twenty minutes of me performing an engine flush and oil change. I used that same Motor Medic flush stuff I mentioned back in 2015. It led me think that the flush must have loosened up some gunk which clogged the pickup strainer, but the symptoms are exactly as I described back then. Also I always run full syn with a good filter, plus I do flushes every now and then. The needle drops to zero and sometimes shoots back up to halfway point. Whole time, the engine sounds perfectly fine. Last night I was doing 80 mph with the needle at zero psi. I'm wondering if the motor flush somehow damaged the little diaphragm in the switch or it just happened to fail from age and it's just a bad coincidence?

Would you believe that the same switch that I paid $25 for, is now roughly $55? And you can't it any cheaper unless you go AM. Jeez!
Will post back to update on how it all turns out. I'm not going to bother checking with the manual gauge unless changing the switch doesn't help. It is a helluva coincidence though, ain't it?

 

Holy smokes, that is a heck of a price jump..... Inflation I am sure only accounts for SOME of that.....

Yeah, engine flush will allow stuff to break loose, and circulate thru the engine. The orifice on the OPS ain't real big, and doesn't take much to plug it up. It also seems that none of the manufacturers can make OPS that are actually reliable..... I have original sensors in engines from the 60's that are still working just fine..... back in the 90's, when I was working at a dealership, even the NEW cars would sometimes have the OPS fail just doing a friggin' oil change.....

 

I doubt it got plugged, but who knows? I checked the oil after the flush and while dark, I didn't see a single grain of anything in it. Last motor flush was done 28K ago.

I tried researching who makes the oil pressure switches so I could just buy that make, but it seems to be a clo$ely guarded $ecret.

 

good to hear your still driving the dak!

Earlier this year I put mine on the stiction eliminator with a fresh oil change. The next oil change the oil looked kinda ugly and I expected the SE to do its thing. The next oil change, oil looked as expected and its been on the SE ever since. 8oz per change for the entire OCI. Oil pressure on the dash continues to look as expected & now have 30k on it since I picked it up (just passed 200k on the odo)

 

Heck yeah, I still drive it. Still need a pickup and don't want to spend 60-70K on a new one, so the Dak suits me just fine. If the SE cleaned your engine, cool but I wouldn't leave it in there, cause you don't know what it's doing to the oil's viscosity, etc. A good synthetic by itself is all it needs. Just use it once in a blue if you feel inclined.

 

The amount is small enough to not worry about it. 8oz with 6 quarts, it was designed to stay in the engine for the OCI. The Ram has over 100k on it now with it in every oil change, 492k miles.

 

Got the new oil pressure switch installed today. Got it from the Chrysler store on Amazon, so it's OE.




For anyone doing this, I pulled it off using a deep 27mm impact socket with a 1/2" ratchet. You don't need a special slotted socket as the wire is attached to the harness, not the sender. Be very sparing with the torque esp when using a large wrench like I did. It's a lot of leverage on that small threaded tip. I'd be in a world of hurt if that broke off. Very tight area to work, being underneath on a 4.7.





The old switch was leaking inside. They all go bad like this eventually. Gauge is back to half. No more dings!
341K, for my records.

 

341K and your oil pressure still looks like that? Wow.