Red Oil Light

[ChitownA34DR]

Thats right, she started flashing today when I gave it gas to pass 5k rpm. It is not on at idle. This is not good I assume. The oil is old and synthetic so it is probably very thin. I am changing the oil later today when stores open, but I need to drive it. This might be the end to my SHO owning days if it is serious. What other possibilities might I have to look at here? Hopefully, something clogged? Sending unit? This bums me out so much. I need a pint of Jack...

<small>[ July 18, 2002, 02:47 AM: Message edited by: SmOkE93SHO ]</small>

 

[Groo]

What you need is 5 quarts of Valvoline Max Life 5W-30, stat. None of this synthetic nonesense.

 

[Machspeed]

Get some oil in there! There are two lights, a yellow and a red, the red means your way low. Any oil will do, even coastal.

 

[pete c]

smokedsho,

Did you get any rod bearing type noise when this happened? I hope you shut it down quick. Don't drive it. Walk to autozone and get 5 qts of castrol 10-30 and a good filter. Stoke by the packy on the way home for the fifth of jack just in case.

An even better solution if you have the place to work on it is, jack the front up, put it on stands, remove the y pipe, starter and oil pan. It is really quite easy, assuming the manifold to y pipe bolts cooperate. Remove a rod bearing cap. Hopefully you will find nice smooth rod journals. I would change the bearings even if they look good. They are only about 30 bucks for the whole set. Do a search on rod bearing replacement. There is a good web site on this done by one of the board posters. I used it to do my bearings last week. If the rod journals are scored, finish the bottle of jack and go get another.

 

[pete c]

Another possibility, a far preferable one is that the sending unit is beat and the hi pressure from higher revs causes it to quit. Or you have a loose wire. Pray for this to be your problem.

 

[projectSHO89]

Pull the sending unit and install a real pressure guage.

The red light is for inadequate oil pressure, the yellow says "low oil" and is triggered by the oil level sensor in the oil pan.

Once you know what the real pressures are you can decide whether it's just a problem with the sender or if your engine has a very real problem.

Steve
89

 

[ChitownA34DR]

No noises yet and I have had to drive it around for the past 3 days. Nothing new has occured. Light comes on every once in a while, but that is it. The first night I noticed the light come on, I found I was a quart low.

No rod bearing noises after 2 days of driving the car. Is this a good sign??? I sure hope so because I am about to go drive this POS to get it some oil.

BTW, my car only has 88k mile on it. Just some more info to help sort this out.

<small>[ July 18, 2002, 12:08 PM: Message edited by: SmOkE93SHO ]</small>

 

[Mike Kopstain]

It could just be the sensor Dan. They are notorious for failing and sometimes even leak.

 

[ChitownA34DR]

Update:
I changed the oil. It seemed to be fine but then it started to happen again. Still no noise coming from the engine. I am going to buy and change the sending unit next. I personally think my oil pump might be going. We shall see.

 

[twr]

Oil pump failures are rare in these engines. I would point the finger at the sending unit first. If the pump was only suppling 7 or 8 psi at 5k rpms - you wouldn't be driving the car around still and would have a large paper weight under the hood.