Oil light staying on

[Respawn27]

I got an 84 Tercel sr5 with a 3ac engine. I just replaced head gasket, oil pump, disturbtor cap, oil drain plug and water pump. When I turned her over tho her oil light stays on now. All connectors and hoses are on and not one drop has been found. Is there something I'm missing?

[Respawn27]

Now the light turns off when I'm driving but turns back on at stops and she has very low power for acceleration and when she gets right above 3k rpm she starts to sputter. Is this a timing issue?

[helipilot77]

Oil pump is driven off the crank. You may have unrelated issues. If it's sputtering it's either being starved for fuel or it's the timing. Make sure and check that the vacuum lines going to the distributor advance are hooked up correctly on both ends.

[Respawn27]

Vacuum lines are all hooked up properly and she doesn't seem to be starving for fuel. It idles fine and i see a nice flow of gas going thru the filter and I don't see and smell any gas leaking anywhere. I'm gunna rip of my radiator tonight and see if it got moved from top dead center while I was working on her and hopefully that is the issue.

[Respawn27]

Only other thing I could think of is the bearings got knocked out of place but I do not hear any knocking noise or metal clanging around. I don't believe they are gummed up because with the old pump I had no issue with the light turning on or having low pressure what so ever. I'm thinking either the new pump is faulty or my timing is off but I don't know if the timing being off would cause low pressure at all

[Respawn27]

My exhaust gasket that goes onto my exhaust pipe to the manifold got toasted and fell out when we put the cylinder head back on would this aid in the cause for the blogging out and low pressure?

[xirdneh]

i do not thing anything you did affected the oil sender
i would get another sender
have had a couple of them go bad (light comes on)

[helipilot77]

I recently used this write-up by Keith to set my timing. It works great. Give it a try.

[Respawn27]

I just replaced the oil sender, exhaust gasket, and adjusted the timing. Her power for acceleration is back but light still won't turn off. She don't run hot, no knocking, no bogging. What else could it be?

[Respawn27]

I just out in 10w40 oil in her as she has 210k on her. I tried timing her and she looks like she is all lined up but she keeps making load popping noises from the engine. Do I have her on the wrong stroke?

[Petros]

first off I would put a mechanical oil pressure gauge on the engine just to make sure the oil pressure is okay. They do not cost much, though likely it fine because you would have trashed the engine by now if not.

I had a short somewhere in the wiring on my oil pressure light, it would come on dim, or go on and off randomly. I put the oil pressure gauge in, completely removed the oil sender and cut off the wire. the oil light still comes on sometimes, it is not even connected! So the wire can short somewhere.

Make sure your spark timing is correct and you have no vacuum leaks. Verify all of the vac tubes are routed correctly using the vac diagram (do not assume they were routed correctly before, these often get mixed around even by "professional" mechanics).

[Respawn27]

Im getting a pressure gauge after work cuz the store was closed by the time i got there. The light turns off after about 3k rpm and then flickers on and off when it's under. She was running at fine temp while driving buy when I press on brake and start to slow down she raises to where the top of the needle is lined up ( maybe a lil above) the F on the temp sensor (or whatever that symbol is suppose to be). Her coolant is good, oil is good. I'm thinking of taking out the thermostat and cleaning it off to see if any gunk is on it at all. What else could cause this?

[BaileySims]

I remember mine did the same thing with the oil light staying on like yours. I never did figure it out. Bought a new sending unit and still had the same results. Bought a pressure gauge to measure and it was within spec. Got a digital oil pressure gauge from a buddy of mine and disconnected the light in the cluster. Not as accurate as I thought it would be but it sure does beat driving around and staring at the light turning on and off.

[Respawn27]

I was thinking of wiring up a pressure gauge as well so I could see the actual pressure at the time off instead of guessing. That light flickering all the time gives me a headache I almost put electrical tape over this morning.

[xirdneh]

Maybe a bad wire or connection somewhere along oil wire path to dash