Oil pressure sensor - dealer scam?

[Tonyrodz]

Do not neglect the little gasket under the oil pressure sensor. And I hope you have little hands - the little bastard sits about 6" in front of the radio. I lost one and actually tied fishing line around the next one so I could retrieve it if I dropped it. Found the one I dropped about a year later when I swapped engines...

Where did it land?

 

[gpd4]

Couldn't tell you. The shop that did the engine swap found it...

 

[Z71Tahoe2004]

Failures are common. Replacing isn't what I'd call a walk in the park. The link below will take you to a number of videos on how to do it. I've seen a couple in which a guy does it with some socket extensions, but he makes it look easy (I don't think it is). I replaced mine (preventative maintenance) while I had the intake manifold off to upgrade the gaskets. That makes it easy, but that's also a much bigger task than you're probably interested in signing up for. If you want to go that route, there's a bunch of preventative stuff you can do for her while you've got the manifold removed -- like new gaskets, checking to make sure the knock sensor wiring and wells are still good, replacing the crank shaft sensor (next to the oil pressure sending unit), and giving that space a good cleaning.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=replace+chevy+2004+oil+pressure+sending+unit

Good luck.

 

[OR VietVet]

Difficult to get at, especially with big hands. If they did the diagnostics they will likely charge no further labor because I would ASSUME they would attach a manual gauge during the process and therefore the sensor/sender is already removed. I would really love to know why they said it needs to be tested. What alerted them that may have a problem? I never accept anyone just telling me something is bad or needs looked at until I know why they said that. If is leaking at the end then the call for a new pigtail is right on the money.

 

[SnowDrifter]

Failures are common. Replacing isn't what I'd call a walk in the park. The link below will take you to a number of videos on how to do it. I've seen a couple in which a guy does it with some socket extensions, but he makes it look easy.

For what it's worth: A couple wobble extensions or a u-joint or 2 and a thin wall chrome socket make it a 10 minute job, most of which will be spent fussing with trying to line the electrical plug up.

 

[OR VietVet]

Yea, the design team on that sender location did a great job. Must have come up with that idea about 5:55 pm on a Friday.

 

[ThatOneGuy_1234]

OK, just replaced the sender. Easy, 15 minute fix, with the right socket and a U-joint. However, now I'm getting a '0' pressure reading. So there was clearly a problem with the old sender. But why 0 on the gauge? Faulty new sensor? Or, some other issue?

 

[iamdub]

Faulty sensor, incorrect sensor or it's not plugged in. Although, I think some gauges peg out to 80 when the sensor has an open circuit. Or maybe that's a difference between GMT800 and 900.

 

[ThatOneGuy_1234]

Never mind, user error. The new sender was not identical to the old one, and the pins didn't quite get lined up when I connected it. Took it out and practiced making the connection (it's impossible to even see what you're doing, once it's installed) and then reinstalled and connected. Works great now.

Thanks for everyone's help, neighbor is happy and on her way.

 

[OR VietVet]

Did you clean out the connector that you reused to plug in to the new sender. At least blow it out?

Even though it is working now, if you did not clean that connector out I would blow it out and blow out at the connection point of the sender.