Oil light is on

[twinkiejr]

I recently changed out a head on a 1990 civic 4 door 1.5 engine and now the oil light is coming on. The light will not come on at idle no matter how long you let it idle. The darn thing will let you get far enough away from home for it to be a problem before it comes on. I changed the sending unit and thought that had fixed it, but it just let me get further from home before it came on. you can let the car set for a little bit and then crank it back up and it will do this all over again. I checked to see if it was running hot and causing the problem and found that the thermostat was stuck shut. I changed that and it is still doing the same thing. The light had never come on prior to the head change. The light I am refering to is the little light that looks kind of like an aladins lamp. The owners manual says that it is the oil pressure warning light. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[FrodoGT]

Is your oil level correct? You didnt mention so I am compelled to ask...

[twinkiejr]

I am sorry but yes the oil level is correct. It is at the upper hole or dot on the dip stick.

[FrodoGT]

I just had to ask, you wouldnt believe the things people forget...

[twinkiejr]

I understand. I don't know how many times I have worked on something for someone and all that was wrong was that it was out of gas.

[civic_boy91]

maybe the oil pump is bad?

[FrodoGT]

Unless you are sure that it is not the sender, you should check the wiring to it, by that I mean shorting it and seeing if the light comes on/goes off. To make sure you don't have a broken wire etc...then check to make sure the sender is working, there should be continuity between the tip of the sender and the block (or any ground) when the engine is off (or there is below 3psi I believe) and no continuity while running...If you have continuity while running then either the sender is bad, or your pump is not pumping.
You could then take a look under the valve cover to see if oil is being delivered to the top of the head, if not then your pump has taken a crap...

[twinkiejr]

thanks for the help but this car has recently died.

[91civichatch2571]

so... maybe you should have done something about the oil light being on? I bet you had low to no oil pressure. sorry for your loss though anyways

[twinkiejr]

Wasn't anything I could do since the guy wanted his car back before I was done with it.

Not long after I made the original post the guy decided he wanted the car back and didn't care that I couldn't find out why the oil light was on. He said it was on before so he wasn't worried about it. I tried to convince him otherwise but he would have none of it.

[Hybrid1990crx]

well when a oil light comes on it pretty much means you have no oil pressure at all, and if it was ever on for more than 5 seconds Im sure the crank bearings have a nice amount of scaring on them.