Tried a search on this but came up cold. I recently had the dash cluster out of my wife's '91 Firebird, and noticed an un-loaded indicator light socket. When I shined my mag lite into it, it lit up as an amber Low Oil Level indicator. Did these particular lights ever work in any of the cars?

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D.R. Stevens
1984 Trans Am 305HO L69
all the usual external/free mods, original engine
1991 Firebird 305 L03
2 free mods and a K&N,
otherwise stock

 

btt
Am I the only one who ever noticed this?

 

I noticed it on my 90 Camaro. But I didn't try sticking a bulb in it to see if it worked.

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90 RS Convertible
Owner: Top-Down Solutions
(626)369-0040

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I'd say this would be used in base models that didn't have an oil pressure guage?

 

Reviving this in 2012! I found that spot. I'm wondering about it.

 

in the 4th gen they had a traction control light in the cluster, years before they actually had the option in the car. the name even changed when tcs was added!
in my saturns, they have several spots for bulbs that were never used. just because they have a spot in the cluster, doesnt mean they added sensors to feed the light.

 

I know this post is old but WTF would an oil pressure gauge have to do with a low oil level light??? Anyway, I'm unaware of any of these cars having this light. My guess would be that GM planned on it but never actually installed it? I know my old 4th Gen had it. An interesting question would be to find out on what year clusters it started to appear.

 

Um, it's not a low oil light... It's a low coolant light. There was no option for a low oil switch, but there was one for low coolant. And yes, I've seen it... It's the one with the arrow pointed towards down to a liquid in a yellow box, right? If it were oil, it would probably the industry standard oil can...

 

I believe this is the light he is talking about

 

When you go around a corner you lose oil pressure which the sensor would interpet as low oil level. Just as a gauge would swing to 0 under the same condition

 

There's one above the gauges on the right that says LOW OIL. On 90-92 gauges. Im trying to figure out what its for because My car didn't have a bulb in that spot.

 

I assume as one previous poster noted that it was originally planned but never made it to production. The light is supposed to come on & stay on if the oil pan sensor senses low oil with the ignition on & engine not running. Our LT-1 equipped cars have this feature as well as our SN95 Mustang.

It's very nice feature to have and it's not related to the oil pressure circuitry.

 

I think the low oil light warns you before the oil gets low enough to reveal the pick up tube! I sure hope so anyway. I think most go off when it's a quart low- not anywhere near low enough to cause the condition you describe.