I'll make it short and sweet,

first we put a mechanical oil pressure gauge on it, it reads about what the stock on reads but way lower at idle. It was tapped in by the oil filter.

so it isn't the gauge, it may be a little off but the gauge is working, and now when getting to a little above 3 k the pressure drops quickly to zero, on the mechanical gauge it fluctuates alot more.

so we drained the oil, I hit the pan with a mallet and didn't hear the pickup, I looked in the plug hole and saw the pickup, poked at it with a screwdriver and it seems to be in place. There was a good build up on the magnet of dusted metel also.

so I think spun bearing, so I refill it with 20W 50 thinking if it is a spun bearing that it will help a little, (haven't heard a screech or knock... yet)

I start it and it won't build any pressure at all, on either gauges, I rev it nothing, shut it down, check the dipstick, try again, reved it until I heard a little lifter clack and shut it down.

So I'm thinking pump, I'm hoping that the metal in the oil is from the pump trashing itself and bleeding back down through the pickup when shut down and that none of it has made it passed the filter and into the bearings, if it were a bearing then it would still build pressure with the 20 50.

thoughts?

 

So you started it, kept it running, and reved it without any pressure? For how long?

 

10 seconds?