Sharon K.Cooke

351CJ wrote:
>
> "Sharon K.Cooke" <scooke@cox.net> wrote in message
> news:43F2303A.7ECB61AD@cox.net...
> > ncrocket wrote:
> >>
> >> The other day my oil pressure game went to low. and you can tell it's
> >> not getting oil because you an here it in the motor. Sometimes when i
> >> first start up the truck it had oil pressure just fine. After driving
> >> for 10 or so minutes it drops to nothing. But if i shut off the truck
> >> and start it back up it goes right back to normal.
> >
> > I'm not sure just when Ford went from a "real" oil pressure gauge to a
> > idiot
> > light with an analog readout, but it probably was late 80s for the truck
> > lines.
> > If there's a button type sender at the oil pressure output port, it's a
> > fake
> > gauge that closes a switch around 7 psi and then reopens it at say, 5 psi.
> > Put a
> > mechanical gauge on the oil pressure port and see if the readings are
> > consistent
> > with the factory "gauge". If so, you have problems, ranging from a dirty
> > sump
> > (oil pickup screen gets clogged) to worn main bearings or crankshaft. If
> > not,
> > it's the gauge itself, the sender, or the sender wiring.
>
> Since the late 60's at least, '71 for sure.

No, they had idiot lights back in 1949 or so; I'm talking about the fake gauge
that's driven by an on-off switch like the idiot light, but appears to be an
actual needle-type gauge. That piece of trickery didn't happen until the late
1980s on Ford trucks, and Ford-made cars with apparent gauges in the early
1990s.