Can someone give me some advice regarding my oil light. It is not coming on when I turn the ignition on. I have checked the connection to the back of the bulb is on and also the connection on to the oil pressure sender. As far as I can see there are 2 possibilities. The oil pressure switch has suddenly given up the ghost - or I have disturbed some other wiring somewhere under the dash. The engine is a LP rebuild 1600 with only 500 miles on the clock. I had the wiper motor unit out last weekend to replace the spindles and I suppose I could have disturbed something under the dash when I did that - but where do I start looking?? ??? From just a quick look under the dash, I cannot see any obviously trailing/loose wires. Where do the wires run from and to so I can try and trace them. I also can't believe that I have driven it for the past week without noticing that the oil light is not coming on with the charge light! I have just done an oil change today as well, but can't see that I have poked anywhere to disturb any wires in the engine bay. Can a sender unit just suddenly pack up?? Any ideas as to where I can start looking gratefully received. With mechanical things I can normally work through a problem, with electrics I'm a bit of a numpty :-[
connect the wire on the sender straight to earth, if the light comes on its the sender, if not its the wiring if the bulb is ok
Cheers mate - so to connect it to earth, do I just pull off the connector from the sender and touch it to the engine block? will that earth it or do I need to run a length of scrap wire to earth it elsewhere? - told you I was an electrical numpty
Right. I got my Dad to help with his multimeter thingy and we tested the sender unit - ok, Wiring - ok. Eventually seem to have traced the poblem to the bulb holder/bulb. We checked it to see if the bulb is blown etc, but it seems to be ok. Its just when it is oushed in & twisted in place it doesn't work. I have tried cleaning the tiny contacts on the holder with no luck. : I'm thinking its probably easier to find a complete new holder and bulb and put this in rather than faff around. As the van is a daily driver, I really want to have some sort of warning re the oil pressure, so I have rigged up this... Not pretty, but it's just taking the feed/return wires to a different bulb on the dash. At least it works and it will give me some piece of mind until I can source a new bulb holder. Anyone have any ideas where I can get a new one?
The bulb holder is a fairly simple thing, are you sure the 2 little strands on the bulb were ok? also is the earth wire that comes off the track on the back of the dash pod still attached?
mine is/was exactly the same, i tried everything to get mine to work, in the end i've ran a new wire from the sender and put a new bulb holder in the dash...a bit neater than yours but i just couldn't find the problem.
i had a bulb holder and sleeve "in stock" i hoard crap from years and years of cars and anything - for accsesory lights years ago these were all the rage....in this pic you can see where i've mounted it above the handbrake light (even drilled a rare brown dash!) that's how fed up i got trying to trace it....if i ever fix the real light i'll use the hole for a light for reverse lights on or spots on etc...
Looks like a aeroplane cockpit... ;D I drove without a oil light and a loose stud emptied the contents of the oil on the m6, so karma for getting it fixed.. 8)
