Dean (Dean_Zywicki%NIHDCRT.BITNET@CU.NIH.GOV) writes:
> Last night, while brewing and drinking homebrew with Scott Paisley
> and Paul Gilders, I was asking if the mains or the rod bearing would be
> more responsible for low oil pressure. None of us knew, so I'm asking
> the list.
[Non-LBC Content Ahead]
Funny you should mention that. Even as we type, our red Pontiac (ouch) is
in for surgery at our local use-a-bigger-hammer establishment. It suffered
an abrupt drop in oil pressure recently (down to 3 psi at warm idle; roughly
25 psi at 50 mph); which was completely unexpected as it has approximately
20K miles on a new oil pump which had been putting out an excellent 70 psi.
I made extensive enquiries of the local Pontiac experts when locating a new
oil pump, and they suggested two other possibilities: a clogged oil pickup
(unlikely in our case) or a bad rear main bearing. Rod bearings were far
enough away on the oil circulation path that a bad one should not affect the
pressure, but a bad rear main could bleed off pressure. They mentioned that
this would not necessarily be a visible leak to the outside. We shall see.
All this is for a '72 Pontiac 350 V8 with 128K, so Your Mileage May Vary.
-- Andy
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