no oil pressure

[Cooper-97gst]

Hey whats up guys. Im in need of your help once again. Last night i drove out to a meeting abt 20 miles away. On my way i realized that my oil pressure gauge was completely down as if the car was off or gauge unplugged. My dummy light is on due to a bad fuel pressure selonoid, which i by passed, and a test pipe that is installed. I wouldnt know if there is any new codes im not aware about. I will borrow my buddies reader and check that later today when he gets out of work. This morning i open popped the hood and realized i was missing about a quart of oil, but the oil still registers on the dip stick. Thats due to an oil leak i have at the cap. I've changed that cap 2 times and still cant resolve that issue. I removed the oil cap this morning and took a look inside and everything looks normal. Also, i turned the car on for abt a min and took another look and noticed the walls and cams of the head where noticeably drenched. I must add that on 20 mile drive back home the car was completely normal no over heating, stumbles and the car felt strong. So this is where i'm at. I guess my questions are, does my cams and walls being drenched mean that im getting oil up to the head? Will the missing quart of oil cause this false reading?

One more questions, how does the guages get the readings on our cars? do they get them from the computer? or is it direct like my old muscle car... Im wondering what are the possibilities of just the gauge going bad? or the computer, since my water temp guage will twitch really bad sometimes.
thanks for your help guys.

 

[xyexz]

I don't know about 2gs but I know on 1gs there is a cable that drivers the sensor for the oil gauge and it has a tendency to fall off from age and then the gauge won't work, scared the crap out of me the first time it did that but just putting it back on fixes it.

 

[Colt4G63 also]

The oil pressure gauge is independent of the ECU, and the sensor does sometimes come unplugged. It's screwed into the oil filter housing below the alternator. You can usually see it if you look from underneath.

I'm not 100% sure about the coolant gauge on a 2g, (if it's independent or not) but if you have a sensor below the thermostat with two raised/exposed flat blade connectors positioned like this -| then that's your dedicated temp gauge sensor. It would have a rubber boot type of plug on the harness that doesn't always keep the moisture out that well.
The coolant sensor for the ECU is ovalish with two small pins down inside the plastic plug, like this (--).

 

[Boostdriven]

As far as I know the water temp sensore for the gauge is independent from the ecu, just like colt4g63 said the sensor with two pins (--) would be the sensore for the ecu that runs ## cold/warm start, the sensore next to it with one pin about 1/4 inch wide is the one for ## gauge, just like anything else they do go bad sometimes.

## oil situation could be few things, like mentioned before it could be that the wire came off the sensor. U have two oil pressure sensore on ## oil filter housing, the smaller one with one pin about 1/4 inch wide is the one for the idiot light, if functioning properly the oil light will come on when oil pressure drops below like 5 psi, the sensore for the gauge is a bit bigger about 2 inches round and has a connector that looks like a head of a nail, those do go bad. My friend had the same happen to him, his oil pressure on his gauge kept getting lower and lower till one day it didn't read at all, but when we installed a mechanical gauge he had 40+ psi when cruising on the highway and like 20+ at idle. Both sensors r independent from the ecu.

 

[Cooper-97gst]

ok thanks guys ill check that out and report what i find...