crazydavez28

i recently purchased a 94 z28 with lt1. I drove 500 miles home and then after a couple of pretty good runs the oil pressure went from normal to nothing. the engine doesn't make noise either. i think my oil pump is messed up. can i change it without completely pulling the motor?

GMRL

First I would make sure its not the oil pressure sender for the gauge. Does it do it all the time, weather the engine is hot or cold etc?

crazydavez28

i'll give that a try. hope that's it. how do i go about changing the sender? it's a little hard to get to

crazydavez28

it's not my sender or gauge. i think i'm gonna pressurize the system and crank it over w/o spark plugs and no oil filter to see if my oil pump is working.

Is this a good idea? cuz i really want to drive my car

slopokrodrigez

How do you know the sendor and the gage are ok Did you try disconnecting the oil sending unit to see what the gage reads? Have you measured the resistance of the sending unit?

Your problem is pressure, not flow. Even if you crank it around with the filter off and oil shoots out of the filter port. That does not prove the pressure is where it should be. I don't recommend it either.

Prove the pressure is where it should be mechanically.

TA2PLAY

Tap the bottom of the pan to see if you can hear your pickup lying in it as well.

crazydavez28

first, i have lost an engine to low oil pressure and don't want to do it again. furthermore let me explain my method.

I made an oil tank out of pvc pipe and filled it with oil i then took a hose from beneath the oil level in the tank and clamped it onto the pressure port on the filter mount so that when i used air to pressurize the oil tank it filled the oil gallies thus pressurizing the system, this tested my gauge and wiring with my air pressure set at 30 psi the gauge was at the halfway point. the other purpose of this was to prevent further damage to my bearings. so i took out the sparkplugs (to remove compression load) and cranked the engine to chack pump operation. No oil volume or pressure was achieved just an occasional squirt due to air pressure in the crankcase.

i also chacked the pickup and it is still attached, furthermore a local mechanic told me that even if the pickup fell off the oil pump shouldn't be affected as long as the crankcase is five quarts full... ?

thanks for the input, i hope this was a good test of my oil pump, sender, and gauge. if you think i did something wrong please tell