My guess is that your idle speed is set too low, and your oil pressure is right at the threshold of triggering the oil pressure warning sender (which is probably set to go on at about 7 PSI). I am amazed that putting thicker oil in it made no difference - I thought you previously had 10W30 in it, there should have been a quick and noticeable improvement in oil pressure when you switched to 20W50. I can't explain it, unless your slow idle (causing rough idling) is shaking things so bad that the oil pressure sending unit wire is getting tapped on something that is grounded - inspect that wire and make sure it can't touch anything. Anything that grounds that wire will bring on the warning light. If you can find nothing like that, and your idle speed is pretty close to 700-750 RPM, I think you need to beg, borrow or steal a real oil pressure test gauge, and see what you've got there, hot engine, at idle. We'd like to hear you've got 30 PSI or better, but even 15 is good enough to keep driving it for a while. If you have a tachometer, check your idle speed. If the engine is tired, it probably needs to idle at 700 RPM in drive, AC on, to avoid a shaky idle. None of this sounds like impending doom to me - cars run for years and years with tired engines - usually something else will cause you to rebuild it - like a burnt valve causing a persistent miss, long before a bearing spins. Just listen to it - if you don't hear any loud knocking when you first start it (first few turns on the crank), your main bearings are not about to let go, and if you don't hear any rapping on the overrun (high rpm, lift off the gas) your rod bearings are not about to let a rod poke through the block. On the other hand, if you do hear such noises, pay attention - the tow truck is circling you! Dick Benjamin -----Original Message----- From: mailing-list-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:mailing-list-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Nat Hall Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 8:20 PM To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: IML: '82 oil pressure issues This is going back a month, but... > >Third: Your low oil pressure warning is a sign that either your engine is >getting a bit tired, or the engine has the wrong oil in it. If you don't >know what oil is in it, I'd recommend changing the oil and oil filter, and >using either 15W40 or 20W50 oil in it. This will probably make the low oil >pressure indication go away for a while, but sometime in the next 100,000 >miles, you may be in for an engine rebuild. I had a similar car with >almost 300K on it, and I had a similar symptom - so they do wear out, but it >takes a long time. The above excerpt was from Dick Benjamin in response to a message I originally posted. Basically, the gist of it is my '82 coupe flickers the low oil pressure light (*only* at idle) after a drive on the freeway of 20 minutes or longer. I can drive around town all day long without a freeway trip and this will not happen. Additionally, it will only happen sometimes and is not reproducible 100% of the time. The low oil flicker is always accompanied by a rougher-than-normal idle. Putting the transmission in neutral or park will make the low oil flicker go away. Even when this happens after a romp on the freeway, driving around town for a bit at lower speeds will return the idle to normal and make the low oil warning go away even without the use of neutral. The car is carbureted and not EFI, but I don't see how that has any bearing on this. Following Dick's response above, I *did* change the oil and filter and used 20W-50 instead. This didn't affect the low oil warnings at all. The oil level stays right where it should be and the oil pressure sender is not at fault-- it was replaced within the last 10,000 miles. The engine is not making any abnormal noises. To be honest, I have been ignoring these "low oil" warnings and I just idle in neutral at stop lights after freeway driving until the problem goes away on it's own. However, recently I've been reading online some pretty grim things about similar issues. The impression I get is that my engine could seize and die at any moment. Is this something I really need to be afraid of at this point? Since the problem only occurs occasionally and under certain circumstances I've been assuming I've still got plenty of time left. Won't I start hearing horrible valve clatter and notice other symptoms before anything terrible happens? ------------------- Nat Hall 1982 Imperial Coupe 1987 Chrysler New Yorker http://newyorker.digital-forever.com ------------------- ----------------- http://www.imperialclub.com ----------------- This message was sent to you by the Imperial Mailing List. Please reply to mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and your response will be shared with everyone. Private messages (and attachments) for the Administrators should be sent to webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To UN-SUBSCRIBE, go to http://imperialclub.com/unsubscribe.htm ----------------- http://www.imperialclub.com ----------------- This message was sent to you by the Imperial Mailing List. Please reply to mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and your response will be shared with everyone. 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