gauge wiring troubleshooting anyone? - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

***DAMON*** · 07-13-2006, 06:42 PM

okay, im wiring volt, oil pressure and oil temp gauges into my camry. everything has gone fine so far, all three get power and jump to 0 when the ignition is turned on. if i let the car run, however, the temp only gets to about 120 and the pressure stays around 4... both right near the start of the gauges reading. what gives? i have a t off of the stock oil pressure switch with both oil temp and pressure senders coming off of that. i checked all of the connections and everything seems good. any ideas? does this have anything to do with the way the senders are connected? not enough oil flow to read right?

the pressure should go up right when the car starts right? what do your gauges usually read? volts is working fine, its the two oil ones giving me problems. any help is appreciated.

thanks,
Damon

***toyomoho*** · 07-13-2006, 07:18 PM

A tee fitting should work OK for oil pressure. If you can, try plumbing the new sensor directly into the engine block at the location the OEM sensor was originally. See what pressure you get. On the 5SFE, oil pressure at idle can be 4-5 lbs, going to 50-70 lbs at 3000 rpm.

Disconnect the wire from the new sensor and momentary ground it very quickly! See if the gage jumps past 4psi.

Having the oil temp sensor on a tee may prevent the oil from getting hotter the 120. You need to have this sensor in direct contact with oil that is constantly flowing or is pooled. The best place for the sensor is the oil pan or exit hose from the oil cooler. You could tee it into the oil cooler line, but make sure it does not block or restrict the oil flow.

***DAMON*** · 07-13-2006, 08:53 PM

okay, after a drive the volt gauge works great- it was a short trip but the oil temp got up to 150, so that seems to be working okay as well, wont know until i drive to work tomorrow. the oil pressure however is still reading at about 0, maybe slightly more. i checked all my connections, everything checks out... im wondering if i dotn have a problem with the sender

***toyomoho*** · 07-13-2006, 10:00 PM

Check the following: the sensor is receiving the full oil pressure, tee fitting not plugged, hole in the sensor not plugged, wire from the gage to the sensor is connected OK, the gage actually works.

The sensor body needs to be grounded to the engine block to work. Did you use some kind of Teflon tape or sealer that prevents the sensor from connecting to the block electrically?

If you have an ohmmeter, the sensor ohm reading should change with the oil pressure. I assume the higher the oil pressure the lower the ohm reading, but cannot state for sure.

***DAMON*** · 07-14-2006, 07:45 AM

Ill check some more of this tonight... oil temp was up around 200 on the way to work so that seems to be working fine. i did use teflon tape on the sender if that has something to do with it, but i used it on the oil temp sender as well and that seems to be working. im thinking its just something wrong with the sender, i know the actual gauge works because it has power and everything, it just stayes between 0 and 2-3 psi

Doctor J · 07-18-2006, 02:56 PM

You may connect oil pres.sender body to the cylinder head with jumper and see, if reading is improved. Also, if a strand of Teflon tape worked itself across the hole in the sender, no oil would get inside. Finally, it may be a good idea to fill the sender with oil prior to installation to get rid of the air which may be trapped inside, especially, if the sender is installed in vertical position.

***DAMON*** · 07-19-2006, 07:19 AM

how wo8uld i go about getting oil into the sender? i still need to take it apart and look at it...

it broke loose so to speak over the weekend and was reading anywhere from 25 to 50 but it still seems to be between o and 15 psi most of the time right now... ill have to tinker with it some night this week. thanks for the reply