I started having oil pressure issues last week on my new to me, 1997 Dodge Ram 1500 with the 5.2l motor.

So, I noticed that while driving at higher RPM's everything seemed fine, however, when idling at 1000 rpms or less the oil pressure drops to zero. This weekend I changed out the oil pump. After priming, I let the truck idle for about 15 minutes and all was fine. Then I took it for a test drive and it performed fine for the first ten minutes then the original problem noted above returned.

I am really confused now and any thoughts or suggestions would be very much appreciated. I am concerned that I really bought a lemon......

 

Screw a mechanical gauge into it, and see what pressure is REALLY doing.

How many miles on the truck?

 

i had the same problem a while back. i replaced the pump, the pickup tube, the sending unit twice, and finally put a mech. guage on it, it read fine. i started researching and found that sometimes the actual bezel messes up, like its a problem with the soder or something. so i just left the mech. guage in my truck and i grounded out the original sending unit wires together so now the bezel reads maxxed out and wont ding at me.

 

[quote=How many miles on the truck?[/quote]


The truck has 148k miles on it....

 

Original sending unit? I would look at that next.

 

Very frustrated and thinking I screwed the pooch in buying this truck. I had my mechanic friend check the pressure with an external guage and the pressure read 10 psi ???

Now I am told the fix may be changing the oil filter and using a thicker motor oil/???????

Any assistance is appreciated.

 

i have a 96 1500 5.9l with 190,xxx miles that is having same problem, from what mechanic told me it was my oil bearings being loose so when the oil begins to heat up it moves through them easier. not sure if same problem but i had same problems

 

what was the pressure when he checked it with the mechanical gauge? if it checked good then replace the pressure sending unit, right next to the distributor and a pain to get out without the socket made for it, but you can use a adjustable wrench and get it. autozone sells the socket im talkin about. it has like part of the side cut out of it.

if that still dont fix it, then the easy fix is to do like i said before, mount the mechanical inside with you and just ground out the original sending unit harness.

 

as for you unless you wanna rebuild it, the only fix is chaning oil, and using 15w-40, also might try usin a bottle of lucus oil stabil in place of one quart of oil.

 

Or, install a high volume pump......