Will coolant in your oil cause the oil light to come on?

[rcfanatic]

Background: My car is burning a little bit of coolant and I think it's from the head gasket. If I leave the car sitting idle for awhile (10 min) it will get close to red on the temp gauge.

However, an odd thing is happening, when I hit the brakes after accelerating my oil light will flicker. The dipstick shows that there is a normal amount of oil, I can't find oil in the coolant reservoir, and the low oil light in the overhead check panel does not come on (it worked just a couple weeks ago).

I know that water is more dense than oil, but could it be that coolant is less dense? This is the only reason I could see why it would read a low oil level, but the dipstick shows normal. Although if it was less dense then it wouldn't work so well as a coolant...

[SpecM]

dude, maybe you shouldn't be driving this car

[dkbmxer002]

just spray a 200 shot, that fixes everything.

[jeffw]

+1 CHANGE THE HEAD GASKET or sell the car

[AndrewBird]

More then likely a loose electrical connection then anything. The light in the cluster is for oil pressure, not oil level. Could also be a bad sender. I'd check the connection at the sender first though and see if it is bad.

[rcfanatic]

dude, maybe you shouldn't be driving this car

Yeah I have a beater escort my friend gave me to drive in the meantime. Just bad luck that the clutch and gasket went at the same time.

+1 CHANGE THE HEAD GASKET or sell the car

Right, I'm still acquiring funds to do this, since I was intending to do an entire head swap anyway. I can't see any point in changing the gasket only to do it all over again when I swap the head in a month or two. Not selling the car - I already have several grand invested in the chassis, suspension, wheels/tires, drivetrain, body, etc. Not to mention countless hours in personal labor.

More then likely a loose electrical connection then anything. The light in the cluster is for oil pressure, not oil level. Could also be a bad sender. I'd check the connection at the sender first though and see if it is bad.

Thanks for the response, I'll look into this over the weekend.

[Apps]

Which oil light flickers the cluster light or the check panel light?

[rcfanatic]

Which oil light flickers the cluster light or the check panel light?

The main cluster light (red, rectangular), not the overhead check light.

[Sean]

dude, maybe you shouldn't be driving this car

Words of wisdom here...

[Apps]

The main cluster light (red, rectangular), not the overhead check light.

If I'm not mistaken and correct me if I'm wrong that cluster light is not only indicative of low oil but low pressure.

[calz4m]

The oil pressure light comes on when you are below 7 psi of oil pressure. That's the factory preset. BEWARE this is bad.

[dkbmxer002]

The oil pressure light comes on when you are below 7 psi of oil pressure. That's the factory preset. BEWARE this is bad.

lol, when i had my oil leak and didn't know it was so bad i started driving and had bad valve-train noise i stopped and checked oil and had nothing showing on the dipstick.. i put a 1/4 in and still nothing lol... after 2 quarts it finally started showing up... haha and the entire time my oil light did not come on. so i don't trust that shit. (my own laziness created the problem)