Oil light + leak

[kasza87]

recently my oil light has been coming on only when the car is at a stop and i have been losing oil as well there is no oil visible on the engine. i did the 60k about 4 months ago. plug wells are dry what else can this be? oil pan?

 

[93rev2sev]

how much have you been losing? How many miles on the engine?

Rod Bearings...NOW.

 

[kasza87]

150k about a quart every few weeks bottom of oil pan is wet. no smoke

 

[joesho_gb]

Good way to check, so help narrow down.
Clean the bottom of the oil pan, so you know you don't have anything sitting there. Drive it around for a while (normal day or whatnot), then before your park it, put a clean piece of cardboard under the car and drive over it.

Let it sit over night. Hopefully you'll have some dripping on there the next day, so you can try to narrow down where it's coming from.
(Also, if the cardboard piece is large enough, when you pull the car on it, mark where the wheels are, so you have a point of reference when you pull off the next day.

 

[ViPER1313]

150k about a quart every few weeks bottom of oil pan is wet. no smoke

I think you have 2 different problems. First off, which oil light is illuminating (the yellow or red one?)

If you are getting the red oil light (oil pressure light) at idle and you are only losing 1qt every couple of weeks, you are most likely in desperate need of rod bearings, or your oil pressure sensor on the back of the motor is messed up and needs to be replaced. Considering you mentioned that this is only happening at idle, I think rod bearings are likely - if you continue to drive on bad bearings you will blow the motor.

If you are getting a yellow oil light, that is the low oil level indicator. Occasionally they fail - if the oil level on the dipstick is correct and you are getting the yellow light, the sensor is bad. The sensor is located on the back of the oil pan by the drain plug.

As for the oil on the bottom of the oil pan, it is most likely the oil pan gaskets or the rear main seal. I really doubt it has any direct impact on your oil light problem if you are getting the red light at idle though...

 

[kasza87]

its the red light...it dosent stay on it flickers only at idle.

 

[91PDXmocha]

I have seen it on 3 SHO's so far... go get a set of clevite rod bearings and check out the guide to doing the rod bearings in the car, or just swap in a junkyard motor. Im guessing you are on borrowed time.

 

[jmpSHO]

Replace the oil pressure switch and see if that cures the light problem. If it doesn't then I would replace the rod bearings.

 

[Art5]

yeah, dude, seriously, replace sensor first and get ready for rod bearing job. I just did mine this summer, not that hard. will take you about 5 hours to do rod bearings. It is less time and money than to change the whole engine. If you have garage it would be a piece of cake.

 

[Vnuk1]

Oh no the Red Light of Death!

 

[AREA 91]

Change the oil pressure switch first. It's located on the firewall side of the engine.