MadaboutKitcars

My oil pressure has never been that great, but whilst I was out this afternoon having a quick blast to test my spare wheel, the oil pressure suddenly dropped to practically to nothing and the oil pressure light came on burning bright!
The light would go out above about 2000 rpm and the oil gauge was measuring about 5psi.

Wasn't far from home, so got home, and got the manual out and started reading........

There was no oil leaks and the engine oil level on the dip stick was normal.

Then gave the engine a quick rev to see what pressure it got up to and suddenly it all came back to normal. It was like something was blocked and then cleared?

Any ideas? I'm going to start with a new oil filter and an oil change before anything major. I wonder if I should use flushing oil?

Hmm oil pressure problem dont sound good hope its nothing to drastic. How did the spare wheel fit is this finally our solution?

Stuart

My guess is a blockage because the engine has been standing for some time. You could have got some crud in the oil pressure relief valve jamming it open.

Did you change the oil pump when you overhauled the engine?

Robin

I'm thinking along the same lines.......

It appears that that there are a couple of valves in the sump/pump which are critical to the correct pressure. I've not changed my pump or even had the sump off my engine.
Anybody changed theirs got any advice??

I changed mine. Pretty easy job with the engine in place (albeit messy) The main thing is to make sure that you don't crush the sump gasket after by over tightening the retaining screws (which I think I may have done - oops)

Robin

I ordered a new oil pump, sump gasket and oil filter this morning.

Apart from some new oil, is there anything else I need to change?

Peter

A quick update on my oil pump change.



Here is a close up of the pump still on the car. I think I can see already a load of crud blocking the grill. I will investigate more when its off the engine. Not sure what it is and there was no other stuff like this in the sump?



View of bottem end of engine with sump removed. You can just see the pump drive shaft on the right and the oil is pumpd up the left fork of the pump where the pressure gauge and switch are located.



This is my new Febi pump supplied by Eurocarparts. Looks the same but the hole in the intake plate is in a slighlty different postion? New sump gasket in the background.

Looks like maybe some crud was lodged in the engine somewhere from being sat for a while which slowly made it's way to the pump blocking it up.

Shouldn't think the pickup hole position will cause any issues, under normal conditions that whole part of the pump would be submerged in oil.

I finished fitting my new oil pump and re-fiited the sump yesterday.
New oil filter and oil and i'm now getting a healthy 25psi at idle and 50+psi at normal running speed.