One day heading to work, I stopped at a red light, was idling for about a minute or so. My check guages light came on. I check all my guages and then notice my Oil pressure is sitting on 0! I immediately put it into neutral and gave it a little gas and the pressure would rise slightly (to about 10 maybe). I pulled over and checked my oil. It was at the lower part of the full mark. I stopped at a nearby auto parts and put some more oil in towards the upper half of the full mark. started the car up and it would go up to about 30. I decided to head home and not hurt the car. The entire time if i got caught at a light or stop sign, it would slowly fall back to 0.

I hadn't driven the car for a while because the registration and inspection was out. Things I have done so far. Emptied the oil, changed out oil and filter. Same thing happens.

I suspect the pump is going out, but what puzzles me is why, if you give it gas, the pressure rises to about 30, then falls to 0.

I dread having to change out the pump, can I check anything else before having to dive into this?

 

I would be happy it was the pump. Becuase that sounds like a case of some bad bearings.

 

put some redline 10w40 in it and a wix 51060 filter. see if that helps.

sounds like it was a quart low. which isnt a big deal. i have to run my car a quart low or the oil pressure isnt stable under hard accelleration above 4K rpm. i run the 10w40 redline and have more oil pres then i did with SAE 30.

 

what bearings would those be?

 

How many miles are on the car? Who put the cam in? Did you do lifters with the cam install or just the cam?

 

That would be your rod,mains and cam bearings. Sometimes the extra RPM's from a cam make the bearings wear real fast and blow the motor.

 

I did the cam install with a friend. Did not replace the lifters. The cam is relatively small 218/230 @ .050 .495/.510 114LS.

 

Have you checked the oil pressure sending unit and the gage. A hard line pressure gage is also a good backup check before going into the engine.

 

Put a manual guage on it and see if the OP really it low. If it is start pulling it to rebuild.

 

I agree. Def. check w/ manual gauge first. Otherwise, sounds like cam bearings #1 and if not then I would think mains.

 

I see you live in sugarland I live in cypress. If you did spin a bearing I'll help you take your engine out if you help me take mine out. I have a happy hooker to make the job easier. Let me know.
-brandon

 

i like angry hookers, the ***** is tighter.

 

jkayner - Post up on what that gauge says when you get one on there.

 

My car had close to your symptomsin oil pressure, but I had a miss. Oil pressure falling. No knock, but #8 plug had oil on it. Car also wasn't smoking other than normal. Turned out it was a broken valve spring. My car had 107K miles on it, so I pulled the motor. My bearings had some pretty good wear to them. But they were still ok. It was only a matter of time before I had a bearing failure any ways. But you could pull your valve covers to inspect for a broken spring. But anyways, more than likely its time for a rebuild.

ZMAN

 

my oil pressure sensor went bad a couple of times and the guage will not read right everything was fine with it though ok to drive i mean plenty oil....