i was driving my car back from the shop where they adjusted my rr's that i put on wrong ( ), and replaced my broken oil pressure sending unit. i drove it for about an hour, stopped for a while and hopped back on the highway. i was driving at about 4-5k rpm when my oil pressure gauge crashed to zero, and the car stalled out. car wont start at all, so im pretty sure its not the new sending unit. i just finished my first heads and cam install, so im afraid that now ive trashed my motor good. i was reading this post, and im not sure how to even tell if i spun a bearing. also, how can you spot a collapsed lifter? lol, it looks like i spent all my money breaking my car, so now ive got none left to fix it. wish me luck.

cody

 

It depends on whether the engine died first or the oil pressure did. Do the normal things and check for spark and fuel before jumping to any conclusions. If it cranks, the engine is obviously not seized.

 

If the engine started making really loud metallic rapping and or ticking noises then yes I would say its fried for sure. If it just shut off like it was out of gas or if it cranks fine then the motor itself is fine. If/when you get it started and there are no apparent knocking noises at first take a broom stick and put it against the oil pan and the other end to your ear (someone correct me if I'm a bit off on this test). If you hear knocking type noises (believe me you'll know it when you hear it) theres a rod bearing or 2 thats fried. If you hear otherwise then you're fine. good luck
Jason

 

well, how long was it after the oil pressure crashed, and your car stalled?

The rockers might have backed out - which is bad, but.. nowhere near as bad as a spun bearing.

I'm going to throw in my guess and say that if oil pressure crashed first, then its probably a problem related to oil starvation.. spun bearing or so. If its the other way around, get those rockers checked - i had #5's exhaust rocker back out on me a couple times. So I used threadlocker blue on it (stay away from threadlocker red.. guess how I know)

 

cut open the oil filter and look for metal/brass.....

 

everything seemed to happen all at once, but im not really sure. i will try all these suggestions once i get the car towed back to my apartment. at the moment, its still abandoned by the highway where it died.

cody

 

here's what happened to me recently...

i broke in my heads/cam/LT's/clutch install for almost 500 miles of easy shifting street driving before getting on it. after ~450~ miles i hammered it a few times on the street and then took it to the track. on the 3rd pass at the track the car nosed over in 3rd gear and eventually shut itself off. after i got the car home i pulled off both valve covers and checked the rockers, pushrods, etc., and much to my relief everything was ok up there, so i decided to fire it up. it started and ran fine (normal idle and oil pressure) for 3-5 minutes, after which the idle worsened (600-700) and oil pressure dropped to ~20~ psi. there were no loud noises coming from the engine, nor did it seize up, but it never regained idle rpm and oil pressure after the initial drop. i was tempted to drive it, but figured i'd pull the filter first to see what i found. after pulling the filter this weekend, i found metal shavings present almost everywhere in the filter element.

the moral of the story is, when something like this happens, stop driving the car and check everything you can. you can easily get the valve covers and intake off (if necessary) in your driveway, along with the oil filter. by following some helpful advice from friends (as well as not trying to drive the car), i probably kept my engine from completely seizing. in the process i probably saved several hundred dollars by not causing any more damage than had already been done. i'd hate to see what the shortblock would have looked like if i had tried to drive the car while it was in the process of spinning a bearing. i'll post what we find as soon as my engine is torn down.

 

Ill let you know as soon as I get mine apart. I hope I get lucky and its something simple.. Any updates???

 

The quickest way to find out if you have a spun bearing is crail the oil. You'll see shavings in it for sure. I spun mine about 3 months ago and there was no knocking until the car was really warmed up and the oil thinned out. Then you could hear the man at the door. But if your saying that it all happened at once than I bout its a spun bearing. Your car wouldnt just dead knock out with a spun bearing unless it seized which would me it wouldnt crank over.

I would do like good ol SHoebox said and eliminate everything else first.

 

How are the shavings? My oil looks like the sparkles girls put on their faces... but you cant feel anything if you run your fingers in it. Ill be draining the pan and cutting the filter soon enough.

 

Lil fine dust you mean. If so than that aint bad...kinda normal inother words. In mine you could see thread size like shimmers of metal. When you drain the oil into a pan....pour it out of the pan into something else and you see what remains on the bottom of the pan.

 

I hope its not too bad, but if you just finished your "first" heads and cam install and wound it up to 4-5 K, if you boogered your bearings you might start looking for a new short block.

Next time, take it easy long enough to see if everything is running well. Let me temper this with "you just never know when things will go to hell and for no apparent reason". $hi+ happens.

 

Time to turn that 383 into a 398 J/k . Hope you get it figured out man, this stuff eats up too much money