oil pressure problems

[QWIKWE4]

My car just developed this problem this past weekend pretty much over night. I noticed that if the car is in park or neutral and I rev the engine up the oil pressure dips real quick and then rises. Then when I put the car in gear and load the engine the oil pressure drops. If I'm on the freeway coasting at say 60-65mph the pressure is a little under 30psi and as soon as I tip in the throttle to accelerate the the pressure drops to about 10-15psi and if I roll into the throttle the pressure will not rise above 20psi. This problem gets worse the longer the car is running. After 20 minutes on the freeway, coasting pressure is a little under 20psi and when I tip into the throttle the pressure drops to 10psi and barely moves from there if I roll into the throttle.

Before this happened the pressure would shoot up to 60psi under WOT and if I tipped into the throttle while coasting at 60-65mph the pressure would rise evenly with rpm (about 10psi per 1000rpm).

Oh and I'm using 20w-50

 

[ttypewhite]

First things frist. Stop driving the car. If you do have a problem, address it now before the motor starts knocking. Check your oil pressure guage to make sure all is good. Is it a mech or electric guage? Do you have another mech guage you can put on to check if the one on the car is the problem?

Things to check for:
1) look at your front cover where the oil pump sits and pull out that spring and inspect it.
2) Take the plate off of the oil pump to expose the gears so you can see if its damaged.
3) do a oil change and cut your oil filter open and see if you see bearing material in it.
4) If any of whats listed above is present, sike yourself up to pull this motor and get it freshened up.

 

[Blown&Injected]

sorry but this does not sound good - time for a stroker kit???

Try to learn what caused the problem - some lean knock can really start beating up the bearings

 

[QWIKWE4]

I have stopped driving the car and I pulled the pump apart today and everything looked ok. The gears were worn but I dont think it would be enough to cause the pressure to drop as much as it has. I also drained the oil and cut open the filter. The oil looked ok, but the filter had a little bit of brass bearing material.


Tomorrow I'm going to pull the pan and all the caps............and then shoot my foot to make me feel better.

 

[Blown&Injected]

Post some picks of the uppers and lowers of the rods and mains - can provide some insight into what might have happened.

Might just need some gaskets, bearings, and polish on the crank - so put the gun down!

But ya got to find out why it got chewed up.

 

[QWIKWE4]

I'll take some pics tomorrow and post them.

 

[ttypewhite]

That sucks. Sorry to hear that. Don't bother pulling the caps. Yank the motor out and freshen it. There is no way to properly fix this problem with it being in the car if you see bearing material in the filter. It has to come out, so no point in making more work for yourself.:frown:

 

[BOSS 6]

yeah sounds like the engine needs attention 9out of10 times dealing with these cars oil pressure problems=engine problems:biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin:

 

[QWIKWE4]

Forgot to take my camera to work today so no pics, but I did pull the engine pan it was filled with bearing material. A huge pile of bronze colored chips. I think the problem had started a while ago and finally got bad enough to plug the pump pick up causing the low oil pressure. I pulled the mains and all of the bronze material on every main was gone. Surprisingly the crank looked like it could be saved and the rod journals and bearings all looked fine.

Time to stroke and girdle it.

 

[Steve V]

Bronze isn't the materail you want to see on the bearings,it's the babbit(greyish color). When the babbit goes the bronze shows up