Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Oil pressure light

Anyone help with this?. Got the bike out of the garage last week and fired it up. After a minute or so the oil pressure light came on but very dim.Turned it off and did the oil checks etc. Had a look at the sender which was very clean and dry under the boot.
Started it up again, oil light went out but came back on dim again but gets brighter the warmer it gets. Never revved it up. Have repeated 3-4 times this week with the same results having let the engine go cold.
From this I figure its not a wiring fault due to it coming on as the engine gets warm.
Looking at the threads it might be the plastic oil pump gears! I don't have a pressure gauge.

Does it do this at idle only? Is the idle set on the low side? Maybe turn the throttle just a bit to see if the light goes out.

I really wouldn't be too concerned about the bottom end failing on these bikes. They are virtually bulletproof. Haven't heard of any problems with the oil pumps also.

Make sure the sending unit is ok. You might have to do this with a pressure gauge inserted where the pressure sending unit is situated to confirm that the switch is defective. When your light does actually come on dim, pull the wire from the sending unit to see if it is actually finding a ground through the oil pressure sending unit and not somewhere else in the wiring.

If you actually have a low pressure problem, I'd check the banjo bolts going in the head under the valve cover (#9 in diagram). We've had a number of people who have reported low pressure issues due to these bolts breaking. Easy to check. Remove the fuel tank and then remove the 4 valve cover bolts and check.

I had this happen on my '04 when it was less than 6 months old. It freaked me out & I ended up getting it towed to the dealer instead of riding it, just in case. The dealer wasn't entirely sure of the cause but after testing he assured me the pressure was fine. He replaced the pressure switch which seemed to fix the problem, and ordered & replaced the wiring sub-harness in case moisture had gotten into it. It hasn't happened since.

The only time this ever happened to me was recently when my regulator / rectifier (R/R) carked it on me. I knew my oil pressure was fine cos my pressure gauge was normal but shortly after my battery went flat as the the charge was fluctuating supposedly between 22 and 0 volts. Obviously when my battery went flat it was going through the zero charge stage I guess.

I'm not suggesting you've got the same prob cos your battery keeps kicking over but it just may be one other option to check.