Oil Pressure - Garage - Steering

elawson

Bigger Hammer
Nov 26, 2017
42
Snowflake, AZ
First Name
Eric
Willys Model
  1. Forward Control
  2. CJ
Willys Year:
  1. 1950
  2. 1957
  3. 1964
So, I got the FC-170 out of the garage today. All was good until the oil pressure light came on.

Before starting, the oil pressure light is illuminated. When the engine is started, the oil light "turns off". While in neutral, the oil light remains out at idle, and up to "as high an rpm as I thought reasonable (around 3,000 rpm).


HOWEVER, moving down the road, the oil light comes on...no matter the speed or transmission gear. Pushing the clutch in and/or putting the transmission into neutral, but holding the accelerator pedal position the same....and the oil light goes out. I was able to coast back into the driveway.

The engine coolant temperature was within normal limits. The oil is at the almost full level, and does not seem excessively thin, nor does it smell like gasoline.

Tomorrow, if it's not raining, snowing or too cold (it's 31F right now at almost 7pm local time), I'll check the wiring, then see if I can install an oil pressure gauge and if all is well, a new pressure sender. If the oil pressure actually does go down, then I likely have some engine issues.....my first thought is the crankshaft is sliding back and forth...my 2nd thought is that this is unlikely.

In other news......

The new house garage door opening is 1 inch higher than the old house. The 170 fit into the old house garage with about 2 inches clearance. My problem with the new house garage is the garage floor slab is about 6 inches above the surrounding area and the surrounding area slopes away from the garage. When the 170 is almost out of the garage, the rear wheels are about a foot lower than the front wheels. This tips up the front of the 170 so that it will not clear the opening without driving the rear wheels on 5 layers of 2 by 12 by 3 foot "shims". The 170 had been in the garage long enough that I had to really hunt around for the wood. When I get the gravel put down in front of the garage, this should, I hope, should not be a problem.

In other stuff, I replaced the tie rod ends, the bellcrank (got one from 1st gar offroad), rebuilt the drag link ends and the steering box. The steering is very much improved. It's almost as good as a newer vehicle!


Eric
Snowflake, AZ
 
I have both on the CJ5 and will do the same on the 170. On the 170, the light is "right there" and, likely the gauge won't be so noticeable.

It's 23F right now, so when I do actually get going on it, I'll get the "blast furnace" (kerosene torpedo style heater) going so I don't get too cold.

Eric
Snowflake, AZ
 
The 1st, 2nd and 3rd Gen. Ram Diesel trucks with the Cummins Used the same dash pod as the Gas trucks. In order to get the diesel's higher oil pressure to work they fudged a sending unit to read less than true oil pressure. I installed auxiliary gauges in an A pillar pod and was amazed the difference in pressure reading. When the Factory gauge shows 35-40 PSI the aftermarket Made in USA Gauge will show 50-60 PSI. Hot idle the pressure will drop to 20psi on the aftermarket and fall to 0 on the factory gauge. Temp gauge readings vary considerably also.
 
So, I went through the wiring. The only things I saw on the initial exam was the oil pressure lamp's socket was not fully seated into the speedometer.

A closer look at the wire going into the lamp socket (there are 2 wires...one to the sender and one to a "switched on and off by the key" 6 volt source. The wire going to the oil pressure switch, where it exits the lamp socket, has a broken spot in the insulation.

It looks like the brake master cylinder is pushing against the lamp socket and the wire in question is between the lamp socket and the master cylinder. Like most things up front in a 170, it's cramped. Looking at this, it wouldn't take much movement to cause the wire to become grounded. I'll need to take the dash off to confirm things.

Tomorrow, when the stores are open, I'll stop and get a mechanical oil gauge and put all this "to rest" one way or another.

When it warms up, I'm going to rewire everything as the wiring is factory original and in poor condition. I did add a bunch of in-line fuses to prevent a catastrophe.
 
My son is the maintenance supervisor for Nevada County in Grass Valley, Ca. He was test running a 150K turbo charged V10 Ford Propane generator. Him and his guys decided to take lunch while doing the test. It Burst into flames and caused over $60,000 damage to a $100,000 gen set. The oil pressure gauge white plastic line was routed too close to the exhaust manifold, which on a Turbo Propane unit will run Red Hot. The line blew spraying a fine atomized mist of hot oil on the red-hot turbo. The oil ignited which was picked up by the pusher cooling fan and melted the radiator igniting the coolant. Yes, hot coolant with a good supply of forced air burns real good.

Get the copper oil line kit for the O/P gauge and make sure it doesn't make contact with 6 volts.
 
I agree 100% on the uselessness of plastic lines. In a box, somewhere, (I'm still moving) is an oil pressure gauge, with plastic line. I use it as a piece of test equipment...connect the gauge, get a reading, shut things down and then remove the gauge. At no point am I not "right there".

Even copper lines can fail due to embrittlement if they are allowed to vibrate excessively, so I tie down the copper lines in "padded clamps".

As for the update. I installed a T fitting, and then both the pressure sender switch as well as the pressure gauge. When driving, the oil pressure warning light would flicker on-off despite the gauge reading 35-40psi. I found a nice spot to stop, and I reached up under the dash to push the lamp socket back into position and also to wrap some tape around the bare spot in the wire I thought might be a problem. It took awhile because 4 neighbors stopped to see if I needed help (a nice thing). The lamp now works as it should.

I really do need to rewire the FC. I did stick in-line fuses in strategic places so it won't burn up, but that doesn't mean I won't have to do do "field repairs" to get the critical electrical systems up and running.

I will wait until it warms up a bit. The garage is not heated and it's not a lot of fun to do wiring when it's below freezing.
 
FC rewire task is fairly easy and well worth the time. I went a bit overboard and installed a fuse board that has modern fuses and a couple of relays, don't hesitate to label the wires and keep a log as you are installing. You never know when you want to trace down that one oddball later.

Mark from Wisconsin.
 
On the way home from work was a "wire shop" were I could get fine stranded wire from 24ga through 6ga in about 10 different colors with the capability of adding custom color tracers. The VERY fine stranded #4 through 000 wire was black only, but they could add tracers to that as well.

On my CJ5, I used a different color/tracer combination for each wire. That, with a schematic containing color codes, and a "net list" with the same info, will (hopefully) make things nice if I need to do any work.

Unfortunately, the place went out of business.

Eric
 
elawson said:
On the way home from work was a "wire shop" were I could get fine stranded wire from 24ga through 6ga in about 10 different colors with the capability of adding custom color tracers. The VERY fine stranded #4 through 000 wire was black only, but they could add tracers to that as well.

On my CJ5, I used a different color/tracer combination for each wire. That, with a schematic containing color codes, and a "net list" with the same info, will (hopefully) make things nice if I need to do any work.

Unfortunately, the place went out of business.

Eric
Click to expand...
I guess I didn't post what I found. The oil pressure is fine. The problem *was* the oil lamp wire going to the sender. It was getting crushed as I thought.

Now, I just noticed the speedometer buzzes and reads erratically when I drive. Removing the speedometer cable stops that. I removed the instrument cluster and "spun it up" with a variable speed drill. The problem is within the speedometer.

I've heard the current instrument clusters are "junk". Is this true?

Eric
 
elawson said:
I guess I didn't post what I found. The oil pressure is fine. The problem *was* the oil lamp wire going to the sender. It was getting crushed as I thought.

Now, I just noticed the speedometer buzzes and reads erratically when I drive. Removing the speedometer cable stops that. I removed the instrument cluster and "spun it up" with a variable speed drill. The problem is within the speedometer.

I've heard the current instrument clusters are "junk". Is this true?

Eric
Click to expand...
The speedhut one has pretty good reviews, it's a GPS speedo.

JEEP CJ Gauges: Universal-Fit, High-Performance and Custom | SPEEDHUT®

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But you can buy a few of these at the same time.

www.kaiserwillys.com

Compete Speedometer Cluster with Gauges 0-90 MPH Fits 55-71 CJ-3B, 5 | Kaiser Willys

Compete Speedometer Cluster with Gauges 0-90 MPH Fits 55-71 CJ-3B, 5 | Kaiser Willys
www.kaiserwillys.com www.kaiserwillys.com


The large original one has a magnetic cup deal it tends to drag a bit. Then they also break the drive pin. I don't think folks found a place to fix these, the older ones are more serviceable from a lot of gauge restoration shops.

You can find original metric kmH gauges, zip feel the scale is identical and you can swap in the gauge face. But even those run around $500.
 
Eric, the speedo clusters are not “junk” exactly, but do have their issues. The King Seeley in my 59 definitely had some problems, but if yours is still functioning (even noisily) you may be able to save it before it craps out. I wouldn’t run it further if your hoping to save it. I’m not sure exactly what you have, or what it’s problem is, but they can sometimes be cleaned up and relubricated. I found a speedo shop in Tucson that helped me out. PM me if you’d like more info. I’m happy to share what little I know.
 
I was thinking the newer ones .... as in recent year stuff....

I removed the speedometer cable as soon as I heard the noise, and then only spun it up to about 25mph (with the electric drill) for a moment to verify the problem location. So, hopefully it didn't get hurt too badly.

I'm in Snowflake, AZ --neither a weather, nor a political statement. :)
 
When it warms up a bit....it's 33F right now....I'll do another "lift the dash" exercise and look for the oil hole. Thank you.

Eric
 
Some of the later 0-9 larger ones thats more of a one way brass blind roll pin hole.

I have a few in the shop and it's not a good of a spot as the older ones to oil.

The older ones appear to be serviceable and that spot can be used to really get them working nicely.

Its not going to hurt it at all I feel.

Especially if it's in the rig, not sure if oil would even make it down the hole to do much.

There are 2 cross shafts that turn off that main shaft and they are greased which gets kinda hard.

Then you have the magnetic drum set up.

I wound up ordering a NOS NIB kmH speedo part only, and figured out the tube rivet size, but you can use small hardware. Was $85 off ebay. Will swap over one of the nicer 0-9 I have.

kmH are 0-14 scale
MPH are 0-9 scale

The middle of the kmH ones is 7 = 70 and MPH = 4.5 = 45

Goggle says 70 kmH = 44 MPH'ish, close enough for me.

Obviously if you can free up this one and get it working better off. But I probably have 7 or 8 of these 0-9 deals and they can be super rough inside them.

If you get it oiled and it frees up let us know how it makes out.

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