Oil Light/pressure Problems

[Guest Elwood]

Hello again, it's been a while since i posted on this forum - mostly cos the old girls been going fine!! I've also been busy with Weddings, new jobs and Alfa Romeo's!!

 

Anyway, too the point..

 

1st, I have a 2.0 Petrol Galaxy, what engine is this - is it the Zetec or some version of the VW??

 

2nd, I have a problem where the Oil Warning Light will come on after that car has started and will stay on till i rev the engine (sounds dodgy i know!!). She has always been a little rattly on start but this always goes away within 1 or 2 seconds.

 

This weekend i'm going to flush the engine and i plan to drop the sump as i've been told that there is a pickup that can sometimes get blocked and cause this problem.

 

What i wanted to know was, whats the sump like to remove on this, do i need any special tools, is there a gasket and am i stark raving mad??

 

Many thanks, good to post back here again, hope all your air conditioning units are behaving themselves!!!!

[Steven.Langdale]

I'm sure someone will correct me if i'm wrong :) But is it a good idea flushing the engine? are you just going to move all the crud around and block something?

 

It could be the oil pickup, same thing happend on my old Gal. Whilst I didn't remove the sump and clean the pickup myself, my local garage did it for

[Guest Elwood]

kewl and thanks, I've also always understood that a flush is a bad thing but three seperate machanics have suggested it!!!!

 

Ahh well, snot my car it's the misses ;-)

[Guest marcusheawood]

Don't flush it dude, you'll make it worse!

 

Ignore mechanics, they often only give advice when there might be something in it for them (fitting a recon engine perhaps?) :)

 

You don't mention the mileage your engine has covered.

 

There is a fair chance that previous oil starvation or lazy oil changing has resulted in premature main bearing wear; this causes a dramatic reduction in oil pressure. Since you don't get an oil pressure guage in modern cars as a rule, it's prolly been low for quite some time; hence the rattly tappets. The oil light only comes on when pressure is VERY low, and unless you have a faulty oil pressure sender there is no cheap fix for this.

 

I'm afraid you may need a new engine :)

[Guest Elwood]

Thanks for the feedback, if i may need a new engine, then there can't do a lot of harm flushing it...

[Guest marcusheawood]

Au contraire,

 

It may be driveable now but after flushing it may well not be!

 

(Because flushing oil is so thin (5 or 10W straight grade) you will prolly not get enuff pressure to get to the valvegear, 'cos it will just flood out of the mains)

 

It's also a waste of munny 'cos you'll need to buy a can of flushing oil, a can of new engine oil and an oil filter...about

[Guest funkmiester]

I get the oil light on aswell, but mainly when I'm pulling to a stop. Its never stalled on me but fear it may in the future. I had the oil changed only 3 months ago.

 

That seemed to cure it for about 6 weeks but its back again. There is oil on the road where I park it. coul it just be leaking ? Its a 2.3L petrol '97 auto 86,000miles

[Guest marcusheawood]

It's worth looking at the pickup pipe, but keep the oil you drain in case it's knackered, then you can pour it back in. A pattern sump gasket should be as cheap as chips, but you could always use hermetite if you don't like what you find,(i.e. no blockage in the pickup, and it would have to be well blocked to do what you say).

 

Good luck man, I didn't mean to sound like the harbinger of doom :)

[Masked Marauder]

Edit: the bottom line of this post should read oil pump. For some reason this daft device won't let me edit the last line!

 

Once the car is started and been revved does the light stay off at idle even once the engine is fully warmed up?What about if you stop the engine when it is hot and leave it for say 15 mins? Does it rattle or is it ok?

 

If it is ok then my money is on either a sticking oil pressure relief valve or if your engine has one, a failed oil control valve which is a one-way valve between the block and the head allowing the oil to all run back to the sump. It could also be a failing oil stop.

[Guest Elwood]

Once the car is revved the light will go off and stay of and has so far never come back on again.

 

One thing to note is that it almost always does it in hot weather, in cold weather it will not come on at all...

[Guest marcusheawood]

...sorry but i'm still convinced it's the mains, the average oil viscosity is lower in summer. Particularly now that it's hot.

 

I think your bottom end has reached the cusp of mains failure, once the oil film fails completely they will go real quick!

 

Every time your light comes on the bearing shells wear a little more...

[Masked Marauder]

It only takes 4PSI to float the mains. In addition to this the oil pressure switch is at the top of the engine IIRC, so hot thin oil when the engine is warmed up would loose top pressure at idle too if worn mains were to blame, not just when the engine is cold.

 

 

 

 

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[Guest marcusheawood]

Thats all true MM, however the oil pressure switch is also set very low (coincidentally at around 4-8 psi IIRC).

 

In this instance I may be sounding alarm bells prematurely, but every engine I have seen which exhibited this symptom was either a high mileage unit or one which had been run very low on oil and all of them had worn shells.

 

This is an easy thing to check if Elwood is going to take the sump off, he can simply remove the centre main cap and visually inspect the half shell when he checks the oil pickup.

 

Obviously the oil pump will also be worn as will everything else and this will exacerbate the problem. Tolerances do tend to tighten up when an engine is hot, so I'm merely suggesting that this is the first sign that the engine is wearing out.

 

If it is worn then Elwood could use a higher viscosity (a decent 20W50) oil to prolong the useful life of his engine, and hold off the replacement cost for longer. OK?

 

Funkmeister, you are probably experiencing oil surge because the level is low, you must fix the leak and keep an eye on the oil level or you'll kill the engine (oh, and try braking more gently :D ).

[Guest Elwood]

This is an easy thing to check if Elwood is going to take the sump off, he can simply remove the centre main cap and visually inspect the half shell when he checks the oil pickup.

wanna explain what this means???

[Ivor_E_Tower]

Once you have removed the sump, looking into the engine from below you will see the crankshaft. It is held in place by the bearing caps. Take the one off the middle bearing and you will then see the "lower" part of the bearing, or "half shell". If you look at it under a magnifying glass or microscope, you may notice unusual wear, damage etc.

[Masked Marauder]

In reality if you need to ask then you won't know how worn the shell is without using a micrometer or plastigauge anyway.

 

And in my 24 years of engine rebuilding I have never seen a centre shell show the highest level of wear out of the set anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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