Oil pressure gauge acting funky after cluster LEDs installed

Greetings all! Hope you can give me some advice to ease my mind here..

I upgraded my instrument cluster bulbs on my 2000 Limited to LEDs yesterday. I didn't drive the truck after that until this morning.

When I cranked it up this morning, I noticed that my oil pressure gauge was reading about half what it usually does. Even at 3k+ RPM, the gauge would never get above the halfway mark, and it was reading lower than normal throughout my 45 mile drive to work.

I know the pressure was reading normally prior to me taking out the cluster to replace the bulbs.

Is it possible I damaged some traces or something on the cluster circuit board? I did have a heck of a time getting the cluster back in the dash, I'm wondering if it's possible that I damaged something in that process.

Or, do I need to be worried that maybe it's just a coincidence and I actually have lower oil pressure than before?

Thanks in advance! Looking forward to contributing to the forum!

 

Take the dash back off and recheck your connections. Also, I installed some LEDs a few years ago on brake lights and the truck went berserk. Took them back out and reinstalled the OEMs and truck went back to normal. Could be these trucks do not like LED.

Let us know how it goes.

 

Thanks for the reply! I took the cluster back out this afternoon and checked all the connections. Also cleaned them all up with isopropyl and blew everything out with compressed air. No change, unfortunately. I'm thinking about swapping out my oil pressure sender switch tomorrow to see if that fixes the problem. The gauge will go up to about halfway between 1/4 and 1/2 and then stop and not go any higher regardless of revs.

Also, I looked around very closely and didn't see a low oil pressure light on this cluster. Is there not one? I'm assuming if pressure got too low it would throw a CEL?

Thanks again!

 

Here's an update for anyone curious.

I replaced the oil pressure sender and the gauge still read low. So then I did an oil pressure test. The pressure is fine. Reading into the 70s and 80s psi at 3000+ RPM.

So, with a new sender and the pressure reading fine, I think one of two things is happening: either I damaged something on the cluster PCB when I was doing my work, or the cluster just doesnt like the LEDs I put in there, maybe the resistance is wonky or something.

Anyway, I think I'm going to leave it alone now. Since I know the pressure is OK, I don't think I should be too concerned about the gauge readings.

If anybody has any additional thoughts or comments, please don't hesitate to add them. Thanks!

 

Yeah. My suspicion is the LED rejection. Its happened to me just with brake lights, etc.

Thanks for the update.

 

lol

 

Quick update:

So I swapped the original bulbs back in the cluster. No change. I do still have LEDs elsewhere in the truck, though. Dunno if that would cause a problem or not. I'm inclined to think at this point that I damaged the PCB on the cluster or damaged something on the harness/loom.

 

If everything is good just take the new readings as the new norm.