Oil pressure, general advice

Forum: 

Just(2 Days) bought an '85/6 'C' 2.8 diesel sport, am a little concerned at the rec. oil pressure in the specs. page. I was running at 40psi, according to the guage, for 60 miles down the motorway recently. Seemed to run ok,if a little noisy, can I adjust or do I wait for it to die?

Don't panic yet

OK, so the engine is a bit old and maybe the pressure seems a bit low, she's a bit clattery cos the clearances aren't as new, but if you still have some oil pressure at idle, say 15 to 20psi with the engine hot, there's still life in the old beast yet.

Run it on good quality oil and try to avoid lots of motorway work with the pedal to the metal (ie back off a bit from maximum stress by going a bit slower), then odds on your diesel will clatter on for plenty of time to come.

Oh, btw, oil pressure gauges in motor vehicles aren't known for laboratory accuracies (maybe +/- 20% if you're lucky), so the reading on the gauge might be inaccurate. If the reading reduces over time, then it might be a warning of something amiss.