Oil pressure sensor working, but leaking?

[Blk00ss]

I’m getting ready to do valley pan gasket, knock sensors, and intake manifold gaskets. Our oil pressure sensor isn’t new, but it did get changed a while back. When going through the pics today that I’ve taken to try and determine the oil leak from top side, when I zoom in, I’m starting to wonder if our sensor is also leaking…but it’s registering pressure on the gauge. Cold start idle we get around 50psi and once warm we sit around 40psi. When researching the oil sensor issues, people make it sound as if they only leak…when they go bad and stop reading correctly, or when they peg out at 80psi (like our OE one did).

My question is this…can an oil pressure sensor leak, but still be working as far as reading proper pressure?

 

[Sam Harris]

I don’t see why not.. my non OE replacement failed in spectacular fashion, to the point where I got low oil pressure on the dash, and shut it down immediately. That POS sprung a giant leak.. but I can’t see it being impossible to leak around the seal some, while still actually functioning and reading close to correct pressure. -close, because if there is a small leak, it’s unlikely to be 100% accurate.

 

[OR VietVet]

Yes it can still be reading correctly and leaking but that would depend on the leak amount. There is leaking and there is seepage. Get a genuine GM part and be done with it while you have it exposed. When you say, "got it changed", do you mean a shop? Did you specify a GM part or leave it up to them? Likely is a Standard or maybe Dorman part. Which is an invitation for failure.

 

[rockola1971]

Yes it can still be reading correctly and leaking but that would depend o the leak amount. There is leaking and there is seepage. Get a genuine GM part and be done with it while you have it exposed. When you say, "got it changed", do you mean a shop? Did you specify a GM part or leave it up to them? Likely is a Standard or maybe Dorman part. Which is an invitation for failure.

Ahhh Stick another Dorman in there so "you" can do it again....later.

 

[Blk00ss]

I went ahead and swapped it out today. Haven’t had time to dig into the other gasket replacement yet.

No, I did not have a shop do it for me last time. I seldom take my vehicles to a shop for anything. I can’t remember when I changed the pressure sensor last. If I had to guess I’d say maybe 50k miles ago. I also can’t recall if I used an AC Delco one back then or not. Regardless, I swapped it today with an AC delco replacement. The one that came out had oil sitting inside the void where the connector clips. So I’m quite certain I fixed one of our leaks (if I even have multiple). I cleaned the area back there best I could by hosing the area down with brake cleaner and took some more b,I don’t photos. We’ll see. This time I actually took a moment to disconnect the fuel line. It made a much bigger difference getting my hand back behind the intake manifold. Wasn’t expecting it to help that much, but it did.