oil level sensor not possible??

[bimmer630]

Ive read a few other threads that showed what wires to run into the car to make an e34 oil level sensor work..

But Im looking at two diagrams and the

-e30 has a sensor that provides a ground to one wire when its low, and a ground to another wire when its ok.

-E34 uses a simple on/off.. no ground = low oil , and of course ground = ok oil.

So .. If I wire either pin 1 or 3 of the e34 level sensor (they both do the same thing but one has a resistor in parallel with it?) to pin 2 in c101, the oil light will be off when my oil is ok... but will it EVER set the low level light if the check control never sees a ground on the low oil side? simply removing the ground from pin 16 of the check control probably wont set the light.. it needs to see a ground at pin 20 for that. (??)

heres the e34 system (go to 6200.00) http://wds.spaghetticoder.org/older/...g%20Manual.pdf


and e30 http://wds.spaghetticoder.org/older/...g%20Manual.pdf

[RoadHazard]

This has been a while but if I remember correctly, the check control in the E30 turns off the warning light when it senses the 1k ohm resistance on pin 20. Otherwise the light stays on. Connection on pin 16 probably doesn't even matter (but I would wire it anyway.) You can always test the sensor and wiring offline (outside the oil pan.) Holding it the right side up and upside down can give the effect of low oil and full oil respectively. Hope this makes sense.

[bimmer630]

Yeah I could.. But really I want to know what the E34 one is doing.. why are there two signals.. one with a parallel resistor, both going to the check control?

[bzboardz]

i dont remember exactly how i did it but my sensor had 3 wires. 1 to ground and the other two i wired to my c101 static & dynamic oil pins

[treff-7]

that's how i wired mine as well and the oil warning light is always on on the check panel.

[RoadHazard]

Yeah I could.. But really I want to know what the E34 one is doing.. why are there two signals.. one with a parallel resistor, both going to the check control?

According to the wiring diagram, the E30 one also has 3 pins, i.e. one for ground, one with a parallel resistor and one without. That means you can wire the E34 the same way as the E30. The pin with resistor goes to the dynamic oil level pin on the check control and the other one static. That is how I wired mine and it's working fine.

BTW, the 2 pins work differently.
The dynamic one connects to the ground pin when LOW, otherwise it sees 1k ohm resistance.
The static one connects to the ground pin when FULL, and disconnected otherwise.

Again, you can double check the E34 unit offline to confirm if it works as above.