Thanks for the advice. Jeff Schwaia said: > [make] sure you do not have too much oil in your engine. The > level should be between the lines, NOT AT THE TOP LINE. > When the wbx'er has too oil, the crankshaft will splash the oil in the > crankcase on every revolution. This causes the oil to get frothy (tons of > little bubbles) and oil pressure will drop. I checked; my oil level's about 75% of the way between the two marks. David Beierl said: > Begin by unplugging the sender wire from the sender on the after face > of the engine, just left of the crank pulley. Then run the engine > and see what happens. What *should* happen is that with engine > stopped, key on, you'll see blinking light but no buzzer. After you > start, no light or buzzer until ~2000 rpm. Above that the light and > buzzer should come on. I tried this, and the the light and buzzer behaved as they are supposed to. Key on, engine off: blinking light Below ~2000 RPM: no light or buzzer Above ~2000 RPM: blinking light and buzzer Drop back below ~2000 RPM: blinking light and buzzer both remain on So, apparently the light and buzzer "latch" once on, and don't go off even if the RPM's drop below ~2000. I'm curious whether the buzzer and light would stay on if I had reconnected the sender wire at >2000 RPM (simulating "pressure is OK now"). I wasn't quite curious enough to stick my hand through the whirling belts o'death to try it, though. I may rig up a remote switch and try again. Dennis Haynes said: > Once the logic board activates the buzzer it will stay on regardless of > engine RPM. The only way to silence it is to get the pressure switch > satisfied or cycle the ignition switch That fits with what I found in David's test above. I still should probably check that satisfying the pressure switch will turn off my light and buzzer as it's supposed to, but, based on on-the-road behavior, I suspect that works: otherwise, the only way I could get the buzzer off would be to shut off the engine, and that's not (quite) the case. Dennis Haynes said: > What is most likely happening is that after a high speed run the oil is getting > to hot or there is some other pressure problem or maybe the switch is out of > tolerance. But as the RPMS drop so will the oil pressure and near the 2,000 > rpm range the warning is activated and then remains on even down to idle. > Revving the engine above 2,000 rpm then raises the oil pressure enough to > satisfy the switch and the buzzer turns off. That sounds like it would explain my symptoms. So, perhaps my buzzer and light aren't really, as they seemed to, coming on at less than 2000 RPM, but are coming on just above 2000 RPM, and then staying on at less than 2000 RPM. Scott Daniel said: > many waterboxers will run just fine ..until oil clearances are so large > that oil pressure starts being an issue.. > always when hot of course. > At some point it's time to retire or rebuild the engine before it just > blows...like rod through the block. The engine was replaced with a rebuilt one in 2006, and recently overhauled, so I'd like to think that's not an issue. But you never know. When I had my original engine rebuilt by a supposed Volkswagen expert, it threw a rod through the block within a few months. (Thus the replacement. That was an adventure - the shop that did the rebuild had gone out of business in the interim, and the attitude of the owner was, "it's not my problem - it was working great when it left the shop.") Scott Daniel said: > I'd just check the real oil pressure .. like with a gauge. An excellent idea, but complex enough that I think I'll try simpler solutions first. (Unless there's an easy way to do this that I don't know about.) John Rodgers said: > Running with the Mann or Mahle filters which are known good - can't do > anything but help. > > Make sure both the switch and the connection is secure. Zoltan said: > It sounds like the oil pressure sensor is getting bad. The connection seems OK. Maybe the high-pressure sensor's bad. (The low-pressure sensor doesn't seem to play a role in this.) Based on Dennis's theory, it could simply be erroneously signaling "low pressure" when the pressure isn't really too low. I think I'll try replacing the filter with Mann or Mahle at my next oil change, and see if that makes a difference. It it doesn't, I'll replace the high-pressure sensor switch (assuming I can get to it). After that... I don't know. Maybe some 75W200 oil or something. - Steven Sittser -----Original Message----- From: Steven Sittser <ssittservl@aol.com> To: vanagon <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com> Sent: Wed, Apr 4, 2012 7:13 pm Subject: Oil pressure light and buzzer |
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