I know this subject has been covered but I am still not clear on what to do. The oil light will flicker in drive at the light only when the engine is hot. When I put it in neutral is usually goes out or if I raise the rpms. This is an original 350 motor with 110k miles on it. Is this an oil pump problem, timing chain cover wear issue or something else? Is there a good way to determine the cause? I am ready to replace the oil pump but would like to cover my bases. Thanks again to all for the generous help when I have questions like this! chris
Try replacing the oil sending unit before you do anything else. It is the electrical plug thing that is located above the oil pump. Good luck!
Ooops. Forgot to mention I have done that. ...now the wires to the oil sending unit look a little crispy but the idiot light works. chris
This sounds stupid, but when that happened to me, I changed the oil sending unit, it didn't stop the problem. When my head gasket started leaking (white smoke out the exhaust) I rebuilt them and reinstalled them. No more oil flicker at low idle. I don't know what the connection is...but I don't have that problem anymore. The head gasket had meeb leaking for some time, jsut not enough for me to notice. How is the coolant level in your car? Do you have to top it off every once in a while? Like every week or 2? Better run a compression test!
DO NOT DRIVE IT! well I woundn't.... It takes very very very little pressure to turn off the light, so if it is flickering it doesn't mean you have low pressure, it mean you have close to no pressure. Rebuild the oil pump first. And change the filter. This recently happened to mine. Same thing. I drove it home and parked it. Then did a oil cahnge, hoping the filter was collasped or something. Then I have no pressure. Hooked up a actuall gauge. Then took apart the pump, that was previously rebuilt. Everything looked fine. So I reassembled it, and left the filter off. I spun the oil pump with a drill, and didn't get anything out of the pump. If I did get something out of the pump, and still got no pressure it would me something internal is leaking oil. So I concluded it had to be something with the oil pick-up tube. So I pulled the motor, and firgured while it's out I'll do a complete rebuild. The pickup screen was sucked up againt the tube, and clogged right there. since it was sucked up on the tube the bypass wasn't able to work. TA sells a pickup tube, bigger in diameter, and it's got supports so that the screen can't implode like that. I think what cause it was my oil pan was slightly dented up. There is not much clearance between the pickup and the pan. The pan has been dented for a little while, but the thing just clogged then. good luck.
Yeah. I am going to do a compression test first and see what we get. Although I havn't seen any frothyness on the dipstick or white smoke (and the coolant level has been ok) this motor seems to leaking through every gasket ....would not surprise me to have blown head gasket. chris
BEARINGS! I had the same problem with mine. I replaced the pump in a futile attemp to crutch the problem. but didn't help. Most likely your main bearings are wore out. i doubt that anything else will fix it. Sorry.
If the bearings are bad wouldn't there be some sounds when the car is started in the morning? Thanks. chris
take with a grain of salt... okay, i had this problem a while back...i started using 20w50 oil, and it has not happened since...i'm not ruling out a leaky head gasket, on your car or mine, though... there is a large thread covering this very topic, you should search for it, it explains the thicker oil theory much better than i ever could... and now for the grain of salt, my engine needs a tune-up, maybe a rebuild, i have never done a compression test, and i suspect a slight head gasket leak... o No: scott
if running thicker oil keeps the oil light off you've got some problems. Most likely bearing clearances or pump clearances are too much. I'd put an actual gauge on that. Like I said the oil light takes very little pressure to turn it off. So you still may have a low oil pressure issue. Might run forever the way it is, but I'd check into it.
This may not be the same as your problem, but sometimes you just get a bad replacement. I had the problem at very low rpms and had to bump up the idle b/c the car was near stalling. However, the main problem I had was the new sensor had lasted only a few months and gave the same problem. I had installed yet another one and it has been fine for years. I run 20w50 too, but that isn't what fixed it for me.
I had that problem till I rebuilt the oil pump and added a booster plate. intresting thing.... my timing cover had the oil passages drilled some (or it appears to have had it done) I now have about 12 psi at idle in gear automatic trans with the engine hot and running 10w30 oil. oh yea.. my engine has 140k miles.... the oil pressure climbs to 16psi in neutral. its nice having a vehicle owned by an old wwII pilot.. well taken care of. also you may be running too hot. I didnt have a temp gauge but I noticed that after running on highway speeds i'd get down to idle (to get gas) and the oil light would come on. then i'd get boil over to the puke tank when i turned it off. I now have a 180 degree T-stat and a new heavy duty fan clutch. max temp now is just shy of 200 on the highway or in bumper to bumper traffic. I'm building mine up to be a highway cruzer. still need trans cooler. Nate
Not nesisarily, Main bearings generally don't make noise unless they are WAY out, I've never heard a main bearing make noise. Scott said something about running 20w50, According to my owners manual that's what you should be running in the summer. I tried running 20w50 and it crutched in cool weather, but the pressure was still to low for my tastes (about 10 psi). 72skylark is right about being weary to drive it. The light comes on at 4-5 psi.
