Oil Leak

[Roy C Tyler]

I have an oil leak.  It is dripping from the Item circled in the picture.  I believe it to be an oil pressure switch that tells the Aladdin I have pressure or not.  My Aladdin reads 55 all the time. My dash gauge reads 100 lbs on startup and drops to about 70 after warming up and down to about 30 at idle. I understand that this is normal.

This item is mounted on the frame at the drivers side rear of the MH.  I believe the hose entering the unit from the top supplies the oil pressure.  What appears to be a hose on the right in the picture is just a plastic wire protector covering the wire that attaches to the post on the bottom.  I am not a diesel mechanic but this is easy to get to and I am considering replacing it myself. Any information on what this is would be helpful.  I have not been able to find anything on the internet that looks exactly like it and I have not found any numbers on it yet, although I have not removed it.  I have read that Cummins had problems with their oil pressure sending units and went to oil pressure switches that told the computer there was oil pressure or no oil pressure. I have also read that some of these switches are no longer available and if you put on a replacement, the computer has to be reprogrammed which also leads me to take it to a Cummins dealer to get repaired. Any insight on this post would be helpful.

Thanks

[Ken Carpenter]

Chuck, The Alladin system was designed to read oil pressure on a Cat engine. It will not read on a Cummins. ED&A who developed the Alladin had it read 55 so that owners wouldn't worry reading 0 oil pressure !

Ken Carpenter - BCS

[Gerald Farris]

Chuck,
That looks like the oil pressure sending unit for you dash oil pressure gauge. A easy way to verify this is to take the wire off of the terminal, and if I am correct, the dash gauge will stop functioning.

The reason that your Aladdin reads 55 PSI for oil pressure is that you engine has the type of oil pressure switch that you described, and it is the only one that the Aladdin can read. So if there is enough pressure to close the switch, it reads 55 PSI, and if there is not enough pressure to close the switch, it reads 0 PSI.

Gerald

[Roy C Tyler]

UPDATE!!  It was the oil pressure switch (Thank you Gerald).  There were no numbers on it but after a little research I ended up replacing it with an Autometer 2242 sending unit for the short sweep gauge.