Oil Pump Gone???

[Cwgrl]

On my way to work this afternoon which is only 8 miles.

Half way there my oil gauge starts jumping around like its on crack! another 2 miles and my engine sounds like a can full of rocks being shaken!

Lost my oil pump????

 

[windsors03cobra]

Sohc 4.0 ?

 

[Cwgrl]

yup..

 

[fbc]

sounds like a good time for a rebuild.

 

[Gabe96Explorer]

lays TAPS on horn:

sorry man.

 

[Cwgrl]

That's it? anyone else? come on boys....help a girl out here..please

 

[gmanpaint]

Will it still run?

 

[Cwgrl]

Yes... I had it towed home. Started with no problem... gauge jumped and died... engine rattled.

 

[Maniak]

Engine rattle with oil pressure gauge drop is technically called "BAD". That means you are really loosing oil pressure.

Since its dropping quickly and even when the motor is cold I too an leaning towards bad oil pump OR crap in the pan. If you have sludge/crap in the pan it could be getting sucked up against the screen and starving the motor.

This is assuming there is actually enough oil in the motor.

~Mark

 

[gmanpaint]

The fact it starts is a kind of a good sign. Timing chain is still good. Yanking the oil pan and having a look see involves pulling the motor tho. Still a lot of work, and costly to have done.

Sorry about the bad luck here.

 

[Cwgrl]

I got oil... it was only 1/2 qrt low... Figure I'll pull the pan and see whats up. Also, change the oil and filter...

 

[ranger7ltr]

Is this a 2WD or 4WD?

If the truck is 2wd, the oil pan can be dropped from underneath the truck without much effort or moving the engine...Remove the starter and the pan bolts and it is off...You can even reuse the pan gasket if it is not damaged...If it is 4wd, the engine would need to be lifted up or removed to pull the pan...

The oil pump is not hard to remove and replace once the pan is off the engine...I pulled the pump out of my 99 Sport right after I bought it thanks to massive sludge and a dead oil pump...

When you pull the pump, check the driveshaft and make sure it is not broken...If something jammed in the pump teeth, the driveshaft can twist like a pretzel and break rendering the pump useless...

 

[fbc]

Listen, you can really do a band-aid kinda job on it and just pull the pan and replace the oil pump and remove any scraps you find in the pan. But, if your oil pump has failed it's probably because it's a high mileage engine already. And therefore could use a rebuilt while your at it. The difference in price might not be much.

I guess it all ready depends on what "much" is to you. If you supply the gaskets, the difference in labor to pull the engine and redo the gaskets (if rectification isn't deemed necessary) might not be more than $500 dollars more.

To me, to throw away the parts and labor to just change the oil pump and put it back together only to risk some other engine damage isn't worth it. But, I like to play things "safe".

 

[janolsson]

Yes... I had it towed home. Started with no problem... gauge jumped and died... engine rattled.

Hey Cwgrl
was there any rattle to the engine before this problem that would point to chain guide faliure. The reason i ask this is that the plastic guides can fail and the bits can drop into the pan and then get sucked into the oil pick up and block the screen filter thus preventing oil getting thro.

On my uk spec SOHC you can drop the lower pan easy enough with only a couple of bolts a pig to get to.
The good news is this means you can drop the pan and make sure the pick up is clear and check for plastic and possibly small metal leaf springs from the primary tensioner or if 4x4, the balance shaft tensioner.
The bad news is that if the pick up is not blocked then some where else in the engine has a blocked oil port.

When my rear cam chain guide broke i lost oil pressure at idle.
On two engines i also found tiny bits of plastic grit in the oil pump with very worn pump piston.

More bad news is that to get to the oil pump you need to remove the upper sump (ladder rack) which ideally needs the motor pulling to do as on refitting the alignment of the ladder rack with the rear face of the block is critical. Some people on this forum have managed to do it by dropping the front axle tho.

To test the oil pump you can access the oil pump drive shaft from the top of the engine. Remove the intakes and loom and crank case breather and at the rear of the valley you will see a disc held down with a clamp. You can remove the clamp and prise the dics up. It will come out with some persuasion as a 4" shaft with a drive gear on it.
With that out you can put a suitably sized (E12 IIRC) torx socket attached to a drill on the end of the oil pump drive shaft. With the filter removed and the pick up in a bath of oil you can check the performance.

This is a lot of hassle and you won't really get an idea of oil pressure!! but it may tell you the drive shaft is in one piece and the pump is working in a fashion.

keep us updated.

 

[Cwgrl]

Hey Cwgrl
was there any rattle to the engine before this problem that would point to chain guide faliure. The reason i ask this is that the plastic guides can fail and the bits can drop into the pan and then get sucked into the oil pick up and block the screen filter thus preventing oil getting thro.

It never rattled before, but I found plastic! and a crap/gunt... cleaned the pickup... put everything back... Got pressure! after about 3 miles started rattling a bit.. tomorrow is a new day...

 

[ranger7ltr]

Did you take any pictures? How bad did yours look?

This is what I found when I dropped my oil pan and replaced the oil pump, pump pickup, and driveshaft...The driveshaft was fine but the sludge in the pan was pretty bad...After I replaced the pump I drove this engine for 20k miles and would STILL be driving it but I found 2 of the cylinder walls chewed up so I replaced the engine...

 

[Cwgrl]

Yuck!... think i need a engine flush after seeing those pics!

 

[herebyproxy]

Please....what kind of oil are you using and what's your oil change history?

 

[windsors03cobra]

Jeez Ranger thats sick, was that caused by serious neglect of oil changes ?

 

[ranger7ltr]

I bought it that way...

I knew I was in trouble when the oil started coming out of the drain plug in chunks...I believe the original oil filter was still on the engine...BTW I used Mobil 1 after installing the new oil pump and the top end sludge still didn't go away after 20k miles...

There was more sludge in the top end as well...So much so that one of the rockers stuck in the down position and the pushrod fell out of the cup and caused a dead miss...


So CwGrl do you still have oil pressure?