Vauxhall - No Oil Pressure

[gordon wilson]

Did a track day (Aintree) on Saturday and got very noisy tappets on restarting engine to do next session - put this down to low oil pressure due to hot oil, now see from oil cooler thread that this may be due more to my inability to differentiate between 0-40 and 5-40 synthetics properties. Next day all seemed normal cruising the 200 miles home however on the following morning on starting the car from cold there was no oil pressure indicated! Plenty of oil in the sump and when turning the ignition on the oil pressure needle 'jumps' from resting on the stop which seems to suggest the curcuit is live. My initial thoughts are pressure sender failure ( I have checked the connections to sender and gauge which seem Ok) or possibly although less likey a stuck pressure release valve. For the very short time I ran the engine there was no great tappet noise which I assume there would be if there really was no oil pressure rather that just no reading.

 

Grateful for any views, advice, similar experiences.