Hello everyone! I'm new here and can anyone tell me why my oil gauge is slow to come up at start? Sometimes it pops right up to a little bit above middle. Could it be the oil sending unit?

 

Welcome to the site. What model and year is your sending unit or the steel around it?
FF

 

I have 2004 ram slt quad cab. 4.7 58,000 m

 

My 02 4.7 does the same. It's a little slow to build pressure. It's done it for the last 4 years even when it had 40k on it.

 

If you REALLY want to know what is going on inside and what the conditions are then connect a mechanical gauge to the engine and see exactly what PSI you are and how long it takes to build pressure. Then you will know if you have an oil pump issue or a oil pressure sending unit issue

 

Being a 4.7 I'm instantly going to say that you probably have sludge on the screen. Take the plastic baffle out of your oil feed neck and look in there and see if you have any sludge. If you can see some from there and you are already having oil pressure issues I would suggest that you take off the VCs and clean her up. You could clean the bottom end up also of course but that can get pricey if you don't have the tools or know how to do it yourself. Then a very important thing would be to clean your oil screen.

Not saying that it couldn't be other things but I would check for sludge first to eliminate that from a possibility. I found out my 4.7 had sludge issues a couple months ago I posted pictures on here the thread is titled, "found out shes a sludger" or something like that.

 

Thanks, Is a mechanical guage difficult to install?

 

I will also look into the oil feed neck.

 

I forgot all about the 4.7s and sludging issues. Not having one, Ive never had the issue. Installing a mechanical oil gauge is not hard. You would simply (temp) take out the oil sending unit and screw in the mechanical oil gauge in its place.

IF you do have sludge and IF you want to clean the internals WITHOUT tearing the engine apart then there are products out there that can do it. Marvel Mystery Oil, Seafoam, some guys use diesel. But BE sure you follow the directions and change both the filter and oil afterwards.

I have used diesel before myself and had great results.

 

where is the oil sending unit located on a 2994 dodge 2.7 intrepid.