Is your Oil Pressure Guage Real?
 

Hello Everyone,

I'm new to the Mustang scene; having bought a 1998 GT Convertible back in March of this year. I'm a Ford man from quite a ways back...a '63 1/2 Galaxie Fastback was my second car...

I have always had a fair amount of respect for Ford Products and I like the 'Stang and all...but I can't help but notice that the oil pressure guage **NEVER** moves! On start-up it flicks up just past mid-scale...right over the "M" in Normal that'printd on the guage face. Then; it just **SITS THERE**...at idle...at 80 MPH...hot or cold...it never seems to budge. I've become convinced that it's essentially an idiot light sender wired to a guage pointer...and not really a guage.

Is mine different from yours or what?

Thanks for reading...Rusty12

Rusty12:

I can't answer your question, but I might be able to help. I have never trusted these things except that they should move up when the car is running.

Look at a past Thread that I started called "How to turn your odometer into a digital tach." Read all the replys and go to the link that is mentioned. If you follow these instructions, I believe you can get the odometer display to show you a digital readout of oil pressure (among other things).

There is one catch. I know this works on 2000 and newer cars. I don't know about your model year.

Hope this helps!

My '94 van has a gauge, but it's just an idiot light with a needle. You either have oil pressure, or you don't.

The '89 Mustang has a true gauge.

I have a 2000 gt and the gauge worked when i bought it.So after a few months i noticed it just stayed down.When i turn the car on the needle goes up like 1/32" just barely enough to notice,and it stayes there.

So if it's not a **REAL** Guage...
 

Does anyone know of an upgrade that could be installed relatively easily and that would still look stock?

(I'm not interested in puting Stewart-Warner's under the dash like I usedf to do in the 60's...hehe...)

Rusty12

Rusty,
you will not find anyone who sells a complete cluster for your car on account of the analog odometer. Autometer makes a nice cluster for the 99+ cars becauase they have a digital odo.

Your only choice is to get a blank and fill it yourself with custom gauges, I'd suggest moon, since you can get a small enough tach and speedometer to get everything back into the pod.

good luck.

btw, the stock ones work, not as well as aftermarket, but well enough. any electric gauge will show variance when different ohms go through it.

Just because you've seen oil gauges move more doesn't automatically mean they were more accurate.

Thanks for the factual reply. I appreciate your time.

From the first paragraph above; you seem to be saying that my '98 does indeed have a "guage". I had doubted that.

The mechanical oil pressure guages that I've put in my cars always showed quite a bit of movement. Oil pressure was generally between 7-15 psi at idle and maybe 35-45 psi at road speed. It would range higher when cold, and lower when hot. The action of the pointer on my '98's dash doesn't bear any resemblence to that. As far as I can tell...it doesn't ever move at all; except to flick to mid-scale at start-up and drop back at shut-down.

However; it's not that big a deal to me to do the custom job that you're describing. Still; I wouldn't mind seeing a pic of one that someone else sweated through...

Anyone?

Thanks again , Rusty12