Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:20:47 -0800
Reply-To: Joel Cort <joel_cort@YAHOO.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Joel Cort <joel_cort@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: 88 Vanagon - oil pressure alarm
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
John (et al.)
It is imperative that you check the quality of the wire and the connectors that goes from the sensor to the firewall block. It is usually a brown colored wire, just like the standard ground wire on VWs, but it plugs into a little block to a yellow or blue wire. THe other brown wire in that little block comes from the low pressure sender below the number 4 cylinder.
The alarm is set off by the HIGH pressure sender/sensor. The sensor that would set off the alarm, is the one located right below the water pump by the pully. It is a pain to see it or find it. It should be some shade of light gray or light blue to be the proper sender. There has been instances of the wrong sender being located here. OK let's ass u me that the sender is the correct one and has been there for the last 160K miles.
As with anything old and with mileage, when you rub it too long, it don't work....
Check the electrical connector and wiring all the way back to the connecting block by the firewall. It can get corroded and not make a good connection or worse ground out and send the wrong signal.
The sensor is located so that the electrical wire may rub on the pully / fan belt or may rub the engine block and strat grounding out. Either way you will get a falty signal to the system.
Check this brown colored wire first for complete connection before tryng to diagnose anything else.
Check there first before going into the components in the dash.
If you do find a falty wire or connector, simply replace the wire with good automotive wire and connectors and you should be golden.
Cheers,
Joel
89 Syncro Westy
87 Syncro Transporter
Rochester NY
Empire State VW Camping Club
----- Original Message ----
From: John Graham <theklube@GMAIL.COM>
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 3:51:47 PM
Subject: 88 Vanagon - oil pressure alarm
I have recently began to get an intermittent oil pressure alarm. First time
it went off, it scared the heck out of me. I quickly stopped, checked for
leaks, oil level etc. Started back up and it was fine, so I assumed it had a
sensing problem of some sort. All other indicators are good.
I checked with my local shop which really knows Vanagons and works on
problems that I don't want to deal with and the tech that I talked to said
that this is not an uncommon problem with Vanagons of this age (160Kmiles),
said could be a problem with the board on the back of the instrument panel
or a wiring or sensor problem. But basically left me feeling that I didn't
have an emergency on my hands.
The 'malfunction' has grown more frequent over the past few days. As I
drive, it will sometimes just flicker on and then back off. Does not seem
more likely to come on if the revs are low. If it stays on too long, I can
just turn off the ignition and then back on again and it 'resets' to
normal. But it is one annoying noise even though it's not particularly
loud.
Have others experienced such oil pressure behavior?
My next step is to locate the pressure sensors (I understand there are two
of them) and make sure the connections are secure and surrounding wiring
looks good.
John Graham
88 Westy - Hathaway
Charlotte, NC
--
This e-mail is a natural product made from recycled electrons. The slight
variations in spelling and grammar enhance its individual character and
beauty and in no way are to be considered flaws or defects.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Looking for last minute shopping deals?
Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping
