When we last left our hero(?) he had renewed the seals on the oil pump of his wife's 95 Impreza because of the oil light at idle, and because the car had 189,000 miles. The pump's o-ring was replaced and all the screws that had backed out we re-tightened and loc-tited.

 

All was ducky for the first day, but after that with each day once the engine got warm the oil light was coming on at higher and higher RPM, until finally the other day once the vehicle was warm the light was on as high as 2800 or so. Funny thing was, there was no evidence of an engine in distress. The gauge said no oil pressure, but the gut said this was an engine feeling fine. A lot of folks on this list gave good and quick advice, so I thought I would follow-up just in case anyone ever faces the same symptoms....

 

I removed the alternator figuring I would tap into the sender with a mechanical gauge. The first thing I saw was oil welling up on the top of the sender unit..... I crossed my fingers and thought maybe I found my problem.... Put a new sending unit on and there is plenty of oil pressure even at idle. (Yes the oil light comes on with the key, and goes out when turning over.) Looks like I still have a healthy engine.

 

So the moral of the story for me anyway is, the sending units can fail in a way that they still appear to work, but they might be giving eroneous information (ie the light is indicating a lot less pressure than there really is). If I were to speculate, I'm thinking once I refreshed the oil pump, the engine was seeing a lot more oil pressure than it has in years (zero degree mornings), and that tipped the sender into failure over a couple days.

 

Thanks for the help......

 

Steve

i'd go with the black electrical tape over the light.

glad it was a easy fix.

and I am also glad to hear that it was so easy.