ryanm

I have a sneaking suspicion that my oil pump is beginning to fail, but I don't know if the pump will show symptoms prior to complete failure.

Some back ground on my 98 GT...it has been in the family since birth so I know everything that has been done to the car. 180k miles on the original engine and transmission. I was rear-ended by a chick on a cell phone about a year ago and she hit me so hard that it broke my motor mounts. Those were replaced and the bumper got a respray, but I now believe that the impact twisted my dipstick tube because I have to give it some pressure to get it all the way into the pickup to take a reading. This makes me feel that I am not getting accurate oil level readings with the dipstick.

Recently the oil pressure gauge has been yo-yo'ing between no pressure and the "M" in Normal range. The first time this happened I freaked out and thought that the oil level had gotten too low so I immediately pulled over, checked the level, and added 1.5 quarts. The gauge stabilized in the normal range after this with no fluctuation. It started to yo yo again last week and I pulled over, added a quart, and back on my merry way. I know that the engine appears to be leaking from the front main seal, but not enough to be dropping a quart in a week. Is this a sign of a failing oil pump? I just read the procedure for changing the pump in my Haynes and it looks like a pain in the *ss. Is there any other reason why the pressure would yo-yo other than low oil level, or failing oil pump? Can the gauge just start to go bad and cause false readings in the cluster? There has been no loss of performance in the engine and I don't see any changes in RPM's when the yo-yo'ing has been going on with the oil pressure gauge.

Thank you in advance for advice.

ESABATM

Put a mechanical gauge on it. That factory pos is either on or off. If the gauge is moving around replace the sender they are failure items

Old Mustanger

+1^^
The OEM gauges are crap.
You need to get the dipstick tube replaced so you can get an accurate reading of oil level.
You can actually blow an engine by putting in too much oil. One of my kids did this at the advice of a friend. He had 8 qts in a 5 qt system and splooey (tech term).

ryanm

Thank you both! I'll replace the dipstick tube and look into a mechanical oil pressure gauge.