[T3] Oil light flickering! Additives?

Keith Park topnotch at nycap.rr.com
Sun Sep 21 17:47:39 PDT 2014


It all depends on what your oil pressure really IS.
The cheap idiot light senders go out with the slightest of pressure, meaning
your oil pressure really needs to drop to zero to get the light but the
german senders wont give a light till your down to 5psi or so,

5PSI at idle after a hot highway run with 20W50 means things are getting
worn, but not out yet.  Mine will get down to around 5Psi after hot highway
runs and it has 142K on it. NO or next to no oil pressure at idle is an end
of life scenereo.

do you hear any bearing knocking or rattle when you first start it before
the oil pressure comes up?

I use Pennzoil racing 25W50 in my old engine, its quite happy with it but
its no good when it gets really cold out.

Keith


-----Original Message-----
From: type3-vwtype3.org [mailto:type3-vwtype3.org-bounces at lists.vwtype3.org]
On Behalf Of Phil Hof
Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2014 2:27 PM
To: type3-vwtype3.org at lists.vwtype3.org
Subject: [T3] Oil light flickering! Additives?

I have read about the low rpm oil light flicker, but never saw it in my
fastback. until this last week.

I changed the oil, and did a few other chores including adjusting my brakes.
Then after a 10 mile drive on a hot day, I saw my light flicker at idle.
After the panic subsided, I thought about the situation.  I had added a
somewhat thin zinc additive and maybe that thinned the oil, my usual 20W-50
Castrol GTX.  I had also tightened up the rear brakes, maybe a little too
tight?  Maybe they were dragging.

I had also reduced fuel pressure form 30 to 28 in hopes to improve gas
mileage a bit.  That would mean leaner/hotter, so I'll turn that back.

I changed to oil to straight 30 wt, but that didn't fix it- jot did it again
after a brief uphill, full throttle run, followed by idling at a stop sign.

I loosened up the brakes a bit, adjusted my cables to be sure I had no drag
when released, and then did what I never did before. tried an oil additive.
I added maybe 4 oz. of Lucas oil supplement, quite thick actually, in hopes
that it will do as the  label says, raise oil pressure a bit.

Of course, I want to believe anything but a real engine problem!  Still do,
actually.

Now, I plan to tear down the motor in the next year, and go through the
whole motor, maybe adding that counterbalanced crank I hear does such nice
things for engine life, maybe even a remote filter.

But the Cayucos Rally is in a couple of weeks, and I am hoping to find a
temporary solution in a can.  Anyone else used Lucas as a stop-gap fix?

I'll raise the idle speed a bit to make the light stay off (hopefully!), but
I am a little nervous about the 500 mile drive up the coast and back.  This
car was parked for so many years, and then driven for a few with no
problems, so I haven't gone back and checked compression or looked at my
records to see the mileage at the last rebuild.  Power is good, and it has
always run pretty cool.

I'll raise the pressure, and drive it for these couple of weeks to get
confidence for the trip.  But I'd feel better if this Lucas product has been
successful for others.

Thanks,
-Phil

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