Oil Pressure GONE

[leathernotch]

Haven’t had a chance to pull anything apart yet and might not for a few weeks. But I had been on my way to the track when about 40min into the drive I noticed the oil pressure completely dropped off. Pulled right over hoping it was the gauge. Lifters were making a lot of racket so I shut the car off and called for a tow. The car in that brief second I had it running dropped a few drops of oil from the drain plug. But once it was off it didn’t seem to drip anymore. Oil levels also showed fine on the dip stick. Any idea why this happened so suddenly?

 

[ninety15.0]

Are you relying on the stock OP Gauge? If so you need to get a mechanical gauge on there and see whats happening. The fact that you could hear the lifters isnt good though. Perhaps you should get a new drain plug and gasket and hook up a mech OP gauge and see whats going on. Perhaps your stock sending unit chit the bed or the orifice got clogged? Change the oil and check for particulate? Maybe cut open the filter while you are at it.

I would look at the simple things before yanking the motor...good luck

 

[dastang2]

before doing all that i would take the distributor out and check the oil driveshaft. could be snapped from a locked up oil pump. if it is not snapped, put a drill on the oil pump and see if it makes any psi. this is most likely what happened.

 

[Flavadave4]

before doing all that i would take the distributor out and check the oil driveshaft. could be snapped from a locked up oil pump. if it is not snapped, put a drill on the oil pump and see if it makes any psi. this is most likely what happened.

Starting there is much better than a tear down

 

[dastang2]

Starting there is much better than a tear down

pulling the distributor and shining a light in the hole is far from a tear down. the motor is ticking when gauge reads zero. obvious it's a mechanical problem and not a gauge. one bolt holds the distributor down, just take it off and check for a broken pump shaft. i bet there you will find your problem.

 

[90_Red_LX]

Had that happen and it smoked my bearings in short order. Check that dizzy shaft but I believe your shaft is toast, or in my case locked the pump up.

 

[leathernotch]

Shaft fell into the pan soon as we lifted the dis. out of the motor.

Thoughts....

 

[Fox8950]

Its broke. :/ I'd be willing to guess something bound the pump up and turned the shaft into a twizzler. I had this happen in my old stang and thank god for synthetic oil is all I can say, it saved my bearings. Changing it isn't that bad but kind of a pain since even if you jack the motor all the way up you can't get the oil pan out and have to kinda work inside of it (altho there is PLENTY of room to get the job done, it tips pretty far) it would be worth maybe busting a main cap loose to check out your bearings on the bottom end if you might be worried they got scored but if temps didn't get high and you got it shut off in time your probably fine (especially if you were running synthetic) unless you heard any hard knocking of course but a loss of pressure will make hydraulic lifters make noise immediately. Hope this helps

 

[leathernotch]

SAE OIL
But temp did not rise
And I am not sure how long I was driving after the pump went I pulled over when I saw the gauge.

So should I try replacing the oil pump and see if the engine knocks or just start looking for a engine to swap in??

 

[Fox8950]

I definitely wouldn't just write the motor off, if you didn't hear any bottom end knocking you should be fine just changing the oil pump but hard telling of course. Would be worth a shot to me anyhow I know my old one pulled through the failure just fine and it sounds like you caught it pretty quickly.