Hey guys-
So just this last summer I had changed the oil, oil filter, and oil pressure sender on my car. All through the driving season everything seemed to be operating as it should with idle pressure around 60 and up to just shy of 80 driving under a load. Since then my car has been parked in the garage. I needed to move the car the other day to use the space to work on my daily driver and upon startup noticed that the oil pressure gauge bounced immediately over the 80 psi mark when idling acting like its having a seizure jumping around and pegs maxed out when given throttle. If I shut the car off the gauge rests around 20 psi like normal. What gives? Cold oil? Clogged oil filter? Clogged sender?
In order to troubleshoot I unplugged the sender and witnessed the gauge immediately peg and not move with ignition and start. I then grounded sender wire and witnessed the gauge go to 0 psi. This would lead me to believe the gauge in the dash is good. I checked the oil level which looked good with a level between the notches like normal. Am I missing a step in the trouble shooting process? Could I already have a bad sender? Or would leaving a car sit in a 55 degree garage thicken the oil to the point of throwing a high pressure warning? I sort of want to let the car idle for awhile to let the oil warm up thus maybe unsticking something that may be gunked up but definitely don't want to hurt the engine. Thoughts?