22R oil gauge vaccillating

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IDave

IDave

Joined
Jan 3, 2003
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McCall, ID
I haven't had an opportunity to look at it myself yet, but my daughter says her hilux' oil gauge is flipping back and forth between reading normally and reading off/low. I know that sounds like a loose wire, but I want to know if it might be a sign of something more serious about to go bang! Any thoughts?
 
Having had first hand experience with bottom end failure on a 22r, I can say that it definitely isn't that--oil pressure would drop slowly, loss of power, and then bang....


I'd look at electrical issues first, then look at the oil pump. It could have a clog in the pickup tube, but doubtful....
 
check that the oil pressue sensor make sure the wire has a good conection with the sensor it's in frount of the starter
 
Thanks fellas, that's what I was hoping to hear. Having had an oil pressure failure myself (in my FJ40) I am understandably nervous about that possibility. What exactly happened to the engine when your bottom end "let go"?

So, the sender is on the PS? I have the manual out, but not the truck in front of me. The picture in the manual makes it look like it's on the DS. I'll find it easily enough.
 
IIRC, the starter is on the DS....

For my engine failure, it had 274k and I was out wheeling and got stuck in a valley with two washed out muddy roads as the only way out. I finally got pulled out by another wheeler (I was out by myself) after 2 hours of flogging the engine. On the way back home(30 miles) I started losing a bit of power in 5th gear, lost most of my oil pressure at mile 15, started knocking at mile 17, knocking drowned out the radio at mile 20, couldn't rev above three grand at mile 22, lost a rod at mile 23 (along with the rest of my oil pressure, my coolant and pieces of my block, engine seized at mile 28...... walked to mile 30
 
My gauge did weard things at one time. It would get to a certain RPM and start bouncing around. Problem was solved with a different gauge (not sender).
 
Well, we pulled the sender today and stuck a gauge on the engine. At idle it had a pretty steady 50 psi, which went up to 60+ when she reved it up. So I think that's ok.

Then we did the sender test. I'm a little unsure what to make of it: put a test light in between the sender terminal and the battery positive terminal. No light with engine off, as it's supposed to be. Then, a variable light, sometimes bright, sometimes a pulsing dull light with the engine on. It's supposed to flash with the engine on, but it was more like variable contact.

The gauge reads at 1/4 level at idle and goes to 1/2 (this is a little different from what she'd told me) with reving the engine up. She said this was a change from a week ago when it sat at 2/3 all of the time. Dunno.
 
What you need to do is test the sender with a multimeter on the ohm setting. unplug the sender wire and put one electrode on where the wire attaches, and the other on the engine block... then fire it up. if the ohm reading is jumping around, then it's probably the sender, if it's nice and smooth... then I'd look to the gauge cluster...
 
2ndGenToyotaFan said:
What you need to do is test the sender with a multimeter on the ohm setting. unplug the sender wire and put one electrode on where the wire attaches, and the other on the engine block... then fire it up. if the ohm reading is jumping around, then it's probably the sender, if it's nice and smooth... then I'd look to the gauge cluster...
Click to expand...

Thanks! I'll do that next. :)

Is the sender for the FJ40 likely to be the same as the sender for the Hilux? It sure looks it at first glance...
 
2ndGenToyotaFan said:
What you need to do is test the sender with a multimeter on the ohm setting. unplug the sender wire and put one electrode on where the wire attaches, and the other on the engine block... then fire it up. if the ohm reading is jumping around, then it's probably the sender, if it's nice and smooth... then I'd look to the gauge cluster...
Click to expand...

Hmm. Well, that didn't do anything. No change in resistance (1) at all. It seems to be working ok, though. Maybe I'm supposed to be looking at something else? :confused:
 
Do you mean to say that the ohms read 1 constantly? That sounds like you could have a idiot light sender in there.... Do you know if anyone had reason to swap senders or gauge clusters? If you put in an SR5 gauge set without changing the oil pressure sender, it will kill the oil gauge.... and 've heard that it can cause odd behavior....
 
2ndGenToyotaFan said:
Do you mean to say that the ohms read 1 constantly? That sounds like you could have a idiot light sender in there.... Do you know if anyone had reason to swap senders or gauge clusters? If you put in an SR5 gauge set without changing the oil pressure sender, it will kill the oil gauge.... and 've heard that it can cause odd behavior....
Click to expand...

Yes, but I don't see why there would be anything but 1 the way I understood I was to hook it up. No power there, right?

It's definitely the gauge sender, the idiot light sender (also pictured in the FSM), is a very different animal, and I don't think the gauge would be reading 1/4 if the resistance was that high. I'm sure I hooked it up wrong.
 
Correct, no voltage. The resistence (ohms) will vary from idle to higher rpm's to change the reading on the gauge.

There are usually a few ohm settings on a multimeter, try checking it with the other settings. Your meter may have showed a 1 because the resistence was very small and the setting wasn't for that range of resistence.....
 
Will do!
 
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