Normal oil pressure cold, Low pressure warm

[Guest Anonymous]

I crank the engine and have good oil pressure, Take a short ride and oil pressure drops off to 10 lbs at idle, rev the motor and it barely rises. I havn't driven since. What's going on? How do you trouble shoot?

[John Scott]

Rule of thumb is 10 psi for every 1000 rpm. Thin and synthetic oils give a lower reading, but as you state will not rise with rpm. I've had pick up come loose and seen oil pressure vary on cornering and stopping. Might check with another gauge, sender, if electronic. Then if still reads low, pull the pan and check pick up. Hope its something simple, good luck.

JS

[Kevin Shasteen]

I agree that you should pull the pan for inspection. May even want to pull a main cap or two for inspection if everything else looks good.

 

Have you tried replacing your oil pressure sending unit, inspected the wiring from the sending unit to & from the gauge: maybe the stock gauge is going out on you(?).

 

Either way; I'ld want to pull the pan for inspection just as a "sleep better at night" precautionary measure. I'ld even think about replacing the oil pump so I'ld sleep even better. I hate oil pressure loss problems-Blah!

 

Kevin,

(Yea,Still an Inliner)

[grumpyvette]

bbbowtie

what you just described is a classic symptom of an oil pump pickup mounted to close to the bottom of the oil pan or in some cases a partly plugged oil pump pickup screen.pull the pan and replace the oil pump with a new high volume standard pressure model with a bolt on pick up , and have a large screen extension welded on the pickup screen so that it can,t get any closer than 1/2" from the pan bottom.