1955 Ford Ranchwagon oil Sender Wire
 

I was working on the dash wiring and noticed that the oil light has a wire missing. The ground is there but not the main wire. I know that one wire leads to the oil sender switch and I think one other wire would go to the ignition switch.If this is correct,what terminal on the ignition switch would that wire connect to? If anyone has info on this,please let me know.Thanks for your help.

Re: 1955 Ford Ranchwagon oil Sender Wire
 

The 'ground' wire from the dashboard Oil indicator lamp to its Sender is shown as White w/ a red stripe.

The '55 (thunderbird) wiring diagram I have shows a black with green striped wire from the C / ignition coil terminal of the ignition switch providing power to the dashboard Oil indicator bulb.

There should also be a matching black w/ green stripe wire to the Gen dash lamp, or a single wire may possibly come from the C terminal of the Ign switch and feed both of those lamps.
.

Re: 1955 Ford Ranchwagon oil Sender Wire
 

Both the oil and generator idiot lamps have a special isolated lamp socket that is not a standard grounded lamp socket. So if someone has replaced the original sockets with standard sockets, it wont work.
Both sockets have a black/green wire looped to the sockets ending at the ignition switch coil terminal. That is the (-) negative power portion of the circuit. The oil lamp socket has a second wire, white/red that connects to the oil pressure sending unit. That wire runs inside the wire harness and spills out of the harness at the front of the firewall along with the temperature sending unit wire. The white/red band runs down under the exhaust manifold, through the motor mount, then connects to the oil pressure sender with a push-on style terminal. That wire is the (+) positive wire which completes the circuit if the oil pressure is low.

Re: 1955 Ford Ranchwagon oil Sender Wire
 

Note that there is actually two white/red wires. One comes from the harness as noted above but is relatively short and has a connector on the end. The other white/red wire connects to the one from the harness down to the sender as described above. This lower wire is available repro. by itself.


At least that is the way the TBirds are wired, I assume the sedans are the same.

Re: 1955 Ford Ranchwagon oil Sender Wire
 

Interesting. As I recall, my '54 Ranch Wagon has grounded sockets for the idiot lights. Wonder why they changed that for '55?

Re: 1955 Ford Ranchwagon oil Sender Wire
 

Thanks guys for your help with this wiring.The original socket for the oil idiot light is there,just the wire that goes inside the socket is missing. I will follow the instructions given here and wire it accordingly.