5.4 sensor on engine

Has anyone ever heard of there being a sensor on a 2006 5.4 3 valve that shuts engine down when oil pump fails? My issue I noticed my oil pressure gauge drop out then come back up. Then it didn’t happen again. So I changed oil and filter I was about 1000 miles over my normal service. A few days later it did it again but was running super. So I turned around and headed back to the house. Half way there it dropped out again and as I pulled over engine quit totally and would not turn over. So I know it’s done for unless there is a sensor

No. How many miles on the motor ? What oil were you using ? Are you the original owner ?






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black dog said:

Has anyone ever heard of there being a sensor on a 2006 5.4 3 valve that shuts engine down when oil pump fails? My issue I noticed my oil pressure gauge drop out then come back up. Then it didn’t happen again. So I changed oil and filter I was about 1000 miles over my normal service. A few days later it did it again but was running super. So I turned around and headed back to the house. Half way there it dropped out again and as I pulled over engine quit totally and would not turn over. So I know it’s done for unless there is a sensor

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This one could be touchy. Did it make any screeching or squealing sounds before it stopped running or feel low on power etc or was it running fine and just like you turn the key off?
I have had both situations occur the insignificant and the maximum problem.
Let me explain...
We had a 2000 expedition with a 5.4 in it whose oil pressure gauge started doing that dropping to zero with the light coming on and of course at first it freaked me out and caused me to turn the engine off instantly and then it became kind of sporadic and tended to only do it after you had first started when it was cold.
So it was pretty obvious that it was the sending unit getting flaky or had some build up at the end of it or whatever like a lot of the GM V8 engines did.
I confirmed it by taking a long breaker bar handle and on a cold startup when it would drop down after about 20 or 30 seconds I would tap on the sending unit and it instantly popped back up and started working.
That one didn't have any type of low oil pressure turn off so it ran fine regardless and once it warmed up the gauge was always fine.
This one had about 225 to 240 k on it at the time.
No I had a 6.8 but I bought from the original owner with 86,000 miles on it and at 133 during the colder winter time I had started the vehicle up and driven about 10 blocks and up on pulling into a parking lot the gauge dropped to zero.
I turned it off instantly and check the oil which was fine and restarted it and it stayed normal with pressure.
Was parked for about an hour and a half then started it I drove back home the 8 or 10 blocks and if I'm making a turn onto a side road the pressure dropped again so I stopped it came back up. I took off again and it dropped again.
I was thinking geez did the old pump pick up tube fall off or something which isn't really a thing on these engines but on the old hot rods I used to build it was and they could still pick up some oil even with the tube laying in the pan but not so much on these..
So it made me nervous and I changed the oil the next day with pencil Platinum fully synthetic and put a new sending unit on it.
I only drive that vehicle about once a week and so the next week I drove it but all around town with a lot of idling for four or five hours and it was fine. The gauge never fluctuated.
Then the week after that it went out and I hopped on the highway for like 2 miles and came off and again everything was fine with a total of about 3 or 4 hours run time but mostly idling and around town except for that short 2 Mile freeway.
Then the very next weekend after sitting six more days I started it up and drove 8 or 9 miles around town and then idled for about 30 minutes and then hopped on the highway. I only got about 10 or 12 miles down the road and it started screeching and lost oil pressure and locked the engine up.
I actually wasn't driving it but this is what happened.
It lost oil pressure and even with the fresh good oil it had no lubrication up to the camshaft in the heads and that's what they do they start welding the cams to the heads.
I probably could have saved the engine after the fact because it probably had enough oil and lubrication to the rod and main bearings that they would have probably been okay and I could have probably just pulled the heads and had them fixed or put a used set of heads and timing chain set on since it was off anyways but I didn't bother I just picked up a good used engine and put that in..
So I've seen it both ways for an oil pressure gauge dropped and it was just a lousy sending unit with no engine damage or No lack of lubrication and then I've seen it the other way where it was a completely sludged up engine where that previous owner had apparently done little to no oil changes in the first 86,000 miles before I bought it because it was terrible inside with this yellow shellac almost like peanut brittle coating the hole inside of the valve covers and clogging up all the passages.
IIf I had to do over I would probably have gotten a manual gauge onto that 6.8 and when I realized it was actually starving for oil I would have done a double strength double dose of that engine flush the stuff you can get by snap or motor medic or Gunk or amsoil to flush the engine out as much as I possibly could twice even and then would have hoped that the full synthetic oil could lubricate enough and clean things up further.
I would have also probably gone with a 0w30 or 0w 20 oil as opposed to the 5W30 I put into thin but it still might not have worked and the end result may have been the same.
However I could have switched by and with repeated frequent oil changes it could have cleaned up even more and that engine could still be running to this day.
It's hard to tell but the only way you're really know for sure is to put a mechanical gauge in place of the sending unit to check it or you can tap on it like I did see if the needle instantly responds or just change the sending unit and if you never get any more gauge dropping then that's telling you that you probably had oil pressure all along which is what you want to find.

Well yea right before it quit it was losing power but it never squeeled or made any noise just quit. It does have 215000 on it and I’ve already been looking at a rebuilt or crate engine to replace it rather than rebuild! I was just hoping !

My guess is it won't restart now.
Check the oil level and see.
It it's messed up from lack of lubrication, it will crank funny. Will find like it going to start then a few fast cranks and then slow and repeat but it will never actual run up to speed but even for a couple of seconds.
My preference is to buy a cheap wrecked or bad transmission donor vehicle with good running engine. Then I part of the rest of that vehicle which makes it free and I make money on it or sell it for scrap metal and then you get most of it back.