no oil pressure???

Hi all, finishing up my projectZ here. 1982 KZ1000 bored to 1105. I decided
to reinstall an "idiot light" oil light after rewiring the bike from
scratch. It worked fine for a while, light on before starting, off while
running, then scared the crap out of me when it came on and stayed on. There
seems to be oil pressure, no top end noise, and the oil is definitely
circulating when viewed through the crank case sight glass.I will be
installing an oil pressure gauge soon, but wondered if anyone ever had one
of the sending units fail or short? I am getting a bit of blow back, (oil
venting from the crankcase breather), but am hoping its just a stuck ring
from sitting for a while. Lots of compression all across the board. Any
suggestions on checking the oil pressure till I get a proper gauge? TIA all
advice/suggestions welcomed and appreciated!

Tom B

 

Before I did anything else, I'd make sure I really had the oil
pressure I thought I had. You ought to have a fitting somewhere
that a pressure guage could be attached to. I'd check this
carefully.

Assuming this is a failure in the idiot light system only:

Most on/off sensors make a connection to ground to turn on a light.
Pull the wire off the sending unit. Start the engine. If the light
is still on, this would indicate a short in the wire. If it's off,
this would indicate a problem in the sensor.

Note: I'm not familiar with the KZ1000, so I could be wrong here.
This is what I'd do for a generic bike.