Mystery Oil Light

Cheers Kawboy,
Does anyone know the thread size of the pressure switch.
I’ll get a T piece and put a gauge in, just to be sure I have pressure or not.
 

I took the wire off of the oil pressure sensor and …… the light went out.
Darn & drat!!!!

I’ve ordered a new pressure switch but

do oil pressure switches just fail after sitting in a bike that’s been sat in the garage for 4 months?
 

SteveSmith wrote:

I took the wire off of the oil pressure sensor and …… the light went out.
Darn & drat!!!!

I’ve ordered a new pressure switch but

 

do oil pressure switches just fail after sitting in a bike that’s been sat in the garage for 4 months?

Not likely. had the beast been sitting for 10 years-possibly. Can't hurt to have a new pressure switch just for peace of mind. Pretty much an off the shelf switch. Most have a on/off setting around 8 psi.

Argh, this is bonkers. How can the bike have lost oil pressure just by sitting in the garage for 4 months?
There must be a sticking thingamabob in the oil circuit I guess. Maybe there’s a pressure relief ‘valve’ in the oil circuit. 

There is an oil pressure relief valve as an integral part of the oil filter case (inside the oil pan) but there's no recorded issues of them sticking. If anything, sitting for 4 months probably was enough time for the pickup tube for the oil pump to drain down and the oil pump just needs to spin up to load the tube with oil.
Nothing wrong with pulling the spark plugs and spinning the engine over on the starter for 15-20 seconds and see if the oil pressure builds.

For the record, we've probably seen 4 or 5 guys in the last 5 years,  have oil pressure problems and the resolve was a new pressure switch.

The other thing that comes to mind is the unusual number of guys that pulled the oil pan and found the strainer in the oil pickup tube with significantly plugged screens with towel fibers and silicone chunks from bad maintenance practices.

This is interesting (I think).
I took the plugs out, so that there’s no compression.
The oil in the sight glass is at the maximum.

When I crank the engine on the starter the oil level in the sight glass drops to the bottom, then returns to ‘max’ when I stop cranking.

Seems to me that the pump must be lifting the oil from the sump nicely when cranking?

I have a new pressure switch on the way tomorrow so fingers crossed eh?