I got a little bit of a shock from this... driving home happily from work, glance at the oil pressure gauge... zero? That can't be right. Pulled over, checked oil level, the dipstick says it's just fine...

When I switch on the ignition, the needle does lift a little to get to the '0' position, so it's apparently got power... so is it more likely to be a sender or other connection issue?

(It's at times like this I really wish I knew more about cars and the intricacies thereof, but hey, I'm still slowly trying to learn... )

 

Sounds like the sender on the back of the block.

Just buy a mechanical gauge to check to see if you have oil pressure. If you do run the gauge into the interior and use it. Far more accurate then the electric ones.

If you test and have no oil pressure I hope you can find the problem because it will probally be nasty if you dont.

 

It's most likely the sender. If you actually had 0 pressure I'm pretty sure that the engine wouldn't be running. Mine did something similiar today coming home. . it was reading 5 psi when I was at 65mph and 2400 rpm, then all of the sudden it shot up to where it should be. . . it always does this when the car gets hot (ie 220*)

 

The guage sender on this engine sits horizontally, on some brass tubes. This allows whatever bits of dirt that are in the oil, to settle in the thing. When I re-gasketed the intake manifold, I found a duplicate oil passage at the front of the block. Without the distributor and firewall to limit space, the sender is now mounted up front, on a short brass pipe. The sender is pointed down, so dirt can run out. No more erratic guage readings. G.M. was far from perfect.

Seth