aveteam
Member
- Joined
- January 16, 2021
- Messages
- 22
- Reaction score
- 15
- City, State
- Lakeview, OR
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 2000 Explorer XLT
I've been banging my head on this one for a while now.
A little background-
I got this from my FIL a couple weeks ago. He owns a body shop, it was involved in a minor rear-ender and insurance totaled it. He bought it from them, fixed what was damaged, and we bought it from him. It's in really nice shape for 20 years old, straight & clean inside and out. I drove it 150 miles home, ran great, no issues. Went to warm it up the following morning, "Check Gauges" came on, oil pressure gauge was on the L. I shut it off right away, but the engine wasn't making any noises like they do when starving for oil.
I did some looking around on the web and decided the sending unit/switch might be bad, so I have one on order. Today I hooked up an oil pressure tester to it, and it had 35 - 40 psi at idle when cold. It dropped to almost nothing at idle when it warmed up (the 10 psi mark on this gauge is really close to the peg so it's hard to tell, it may have been 6 - 7 psi). The pressure comes right back up if I hold the throttle about 1500 RPM but it was still alarming to see it so low at idle.
Is this normal behavior for these? I know the spec is 15 psi minimum at 2000 RPM per Ford, but this seems low to me, even at idle.
FWIW it has 128000 miles on it. No codes/check engine light. Oil level is right where it should be, though it's fairly black.
My first thought is to change the oil and filter and see if improves, and maybe strain the oil to see if there are any particles in it. Who knows the last time it was changed. My second thought, after reading up some here, is possibly the o-rings in the oil filter adapter, but figured I'd deal with the easy stuff first.
Thanks for your help!
A little background-
I got this from my FIL a couple weeks ago. He owns a body shop, it was involved in a minor rear-ender and insurance totaled it. He bought it from them, fixed what was damaged, and we bought it from him. It's in really nice shape for 20 years old, straight & clean inside and out. I drove it 150 miles home, ran great, no issues. Went to warm it up the following morning, "Check Gauges" came on, oil pressure gauge was on the L. I shut it off right away, but the engine wasn't making any noises like they do when starving for oil.
I did some looking around on the web and decided the sending unit/switch might be bad, so I have one on order. Today I hooked up an oil pressure tester to it, and it had 35 - 40 psi at idle when cold. It dropped to almost nothing at idle when it warmed up (the 10 psi mark on this gauge is really close to the peg so it's hard to tell, it may have been 6 - 7 psi). The pressure comes right back up if I hold the throttle about 1500 RPM but it was still alarming to see it so low at idle.
Is this normal behavior for these? I know the spec is 15 psi minimum at 2000 RPM per Ford, but this seems low to me, even at idle.
FWIW it has 128000 miles on it. No codes/check engine light. Oil level is right where it should be, though it's fairly black.
My first thought is to change the oil and filter and see if improves, and maybe strain the oil to see if there are any particles in it. Who knows the last time it was changed. My second thought, after reading up some here, is possibly the o-rings in the oil filter adapter, but figured I'd deal with the easy stuff first.
Thanks for your help!