The 'E' Type Forum

HI,
I have replaced my oil pressure sender yet again, 3 in 3 years.
I have I feel good oil pressure until it gets hot and at tickover then its a bit low, but I guess with the cooling that's fine.

Under normal operation, car remains on the lower end of normal, UNLESS its hot day, i.e > 25 degrees C and have been sat in town traffic then creeps up and eventually will bring in fans (temp at top end of normal), so I don't I feel have any out of the ordinary cooling issues here unless my oil is getting much hotter than it should and therefore damaging the pressure sender diaphragm??

Problem with the pressure sender has occurred now about every 2500 to 3000 miles or so, and is only cured by replacing the sender. The symptoms start once its hot, usually after prolonger driving or prolonger low speed traffic and therefore heat and then pressure starts going all over the place, usually on the lower side. The last time was after driving from Italy to Germany over the Bremmer pass and eventually oil pressure down to 10 PSI at about 3000rpm. Replaced sender and pressure back to normal, problems removed.

PS this engine was fully rebuilt about 9000 miles ago, runs superb, pulls like a train with no known issues other than these pressure senders.

So I have now had 3 pressure senders in as many years all doing the same thing, unfortunately all have done it when I am about 1000 miles from home so have learned to carry a spare.!

Has anyone else had this sort of problem? Clearly crap parts but 3, cant believe my luck here. Considering oil cooler at the minute.

Hi ..whats your name...please try to put it and your car model in the signature area........its not uncommon for electrical senders to misread or fail.....the best solution is to fit a mechanical guage with an oil feed pipe ........Steve

you can even re-use the wire for the electrical oil pressure sender as an override for the fans. it reaches from the switch to the relay perfectly.

Hi ive had the same problem on my v12 3 in 4 years and they are awful to fit on early s3 mine came from barratts there must be another supplier doing a reliable unit i got told the problem why they go faulty is because i use the car e types are meant to be looked at and polished not used HA HA
Regards Rob

I have three dead senders. One reads low, one reads high, one (the oldest and probably original) doesn’t read at all. The fourth reads normallly and reliably. I thought the batch of duff senders had been bled out of the parts supply system. Clearly not.

mgcjag wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 04, 2018 7:35 am

.....the best solution is to fit a mechanical guage .......Steve

Exactly what I did. I had scary low OP readings, which was strange since the previous owner recently spent $6k on engine work. Those readings were with the electric sender. I installed a mechanical gauge in parallel with the original sender and readings are now where they should be. Lucky, I guess.

We've had so much trouble with the replacement senders that we only ever reuse original ones now.

I’m in the process of rebuilding my Etype. I tested the gauge and sender on the bench. As I am replacing the loom I knocked up a quick circuit and applied regulated air pressure from my compressor to the original gauge setup with a second air pressure gauge (for accuracy) at the sensor connector. You could probably do the same “on the car” but add an earth lead to the sensor housing.
The readings were along way from being accurate. I could tweak the gauge so that it was accurate for one pressure only, the rest would always go out of sync. The gauge would also change its reading when I applied some gentle heat to it from a hair dryer despite the air pressure remaining constant.
In short. I’ll be fitting a mechanical gauge and to keep the purists a bit happier, I’ll be placing the original bits into the cars archives. I am far more concerned with the accurate health of my rebuilt engine than the originality of a gauge set up.

If anyone does try the test on their car, please try adding some heat to the sensor whilst applying a stable air pressure. It would be interesting to see if that affects the readings too. I never did it during my test but only just thought of it now.

I've recently gone on to a mechanical guage, but kept the old one "in case" It's nice to know I'm looking at the actual oil pressure when I look at the guage!!