[bullet_bird176]

I believe that the oil temp in my 95 T-Bird w/ a 96 Cougar engine is running too hot. When I firs got the car it barely moved past the M in NORMAL. Now 7 months later, it is a little past the L. I had the oil changed(Motorcraft 10-40W) about a month ago and climbed a lttle higher since. I'm really worried that it will harm my engine. Could it be that there is old oil sludge left in the engine? Is there a way to flush it out and replace it with fresh oil? Also is there any other thingd that I should get checked? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[Tobey]

Oil Temp? Did you add this gauge or something; the stock gauges don't have oil temp. Are you looking at oil pressure or water temperature?

 

[coggonobrien]

why are you running 10w40????? you are supposed to run either 5w30 or 10w30

 

[The Great Obucina]

dude, thats pressure gauge, not a temp gauge and a dummy gauge at that. It doesnt register ****, matter of fact, once the sender reads 7psi, it tells the gauge to move to one point on the cluster. If the needle starts spazzing, that means the sender has a ****ty connection. BTW, dump that 40wt **** unless you are smoking, if not drain and refill with 10w30 and a motorcraft filter.

 

[bullet_bird176]

So the gauge on the right is oil pressure. I should have realized that when it didn't have any warning light or even a red color on the high side. So dump the 40w immediately, or well it be okay to run for a while with it. I had been running 30w since i put in the new engine but i let my dad handle it this time while i was working. It may actually be 30w, i'll ask him later. So the gauge is a POS and nothing to serious is wrong, correct?

P.S.- thanks for the quick replies.

 

[The Great Obucina]

So the gauge on the right is oil pressure. I should have realized that when it didn't have any warning light or even a red color on the high side. So dump the 40w immediately, or well it be okay to run for a while with it. I had been running 30w since i put in the new engine but i let my dad handle it this time while i was working. It may actually be 30w, i'll ask him later. So the gauge is a POS and nothing to serious is wrong, correct?

P.S.- thanks for the quick replies.

right. you can make it a functioning gauge by using a different sender and soldering a wire to skip the resistor on the backside of the gauge. the writeup is in the tech articles.

 

[Tobey]

So dump the 40w immediately, or well it be okay to run for a while with it.

It won't hurt anything to leave the 10W40 in there. Just switch back on the next oil change.