0-Low oil pressure> tapping sound afta car not being driven for 2 weeks...

got back from Qld last night, started the car this morning for its first run in 2 weeks and noticed that the oil pressure was not registering on the stack gauge and there was a tapping sound.
When the engine got reved the tapping sound went away then gradually came back when at idle(quite audible). Went for a drive.. no oil pressure, could hear tapping a little while driving, but mostly at idle. (oil level is fine on dip stick)
Afta 10 mins noticed that i couldn't really here the tapping so much... parked car went into town for 45 min came back started car and drove away... oil pressure reading came back at about the first bar on the guage and no tapping:wacko::wacko:
Was somthing bloking the oil flow to the engine head??
Should i be concerned? have always had a fairly low reading on oil press gauge. Just cleaned my dirty injector connectors before i went to Qld too. might have noticed slight tapping before i left on trip if i remember right...
Any ideas?:zlove:

 

Oil sitting.........

i had this problem when the car sits for a while not being run the oil sits to the bottom of the engine not getting proper flow the top internals become dry therefore creating a knocking sound. After running it for a little while the oil would have been pumped back around lubricating all parts.

 

when your accelarating your oil pressure should be 4 or over.

If its not it could mean your oil pump is rooted, or the sender is crook.

Either way this isnt a good thing to do. The fact that the lifters are tapping would indicate that maybe the oil pump is on the way out. You need to get this checked or start looking for a new engine!

If you let it continue and the pump is buggered it wont be long and the engine will be stuffed.

Be conservative and check EVERYTHING

 

I wouldn't worry if I were you - I had my car off the road for six months

and when I started my engine up the same thing happened - click click click ..... and then went away after about 10 minutes. I would have been worried except someone had posted the same concern a couple of weeks before. I suspect as someone suggested that it is the cam followers. I think especially the exhaust followers because they are at a considerable angle to the vertical. In straight pushrod engines eg old commodores the cam followers are vertical and so oil can't leak out. As for the oil pressure there have been many posts about this. Apparently the oil pressure sender is notoriously incorrect for some reason. I hope this is true because my gauge displays alarmingly low oil pressures at times.

 

Tell ya a funny story

I few weeks ago there was this VN commodore parked outside my house for a bout 4 days.

I asked ny son who;s it was. It was a mate of his and Scott said that it was losing oil and they only just got home as the valve gear was chattering.

LMAO, The kids old man told him to fill it up with oil and keep filling it up till he got home.

Anyway, They filled the bastard up and the vlave gear was still chattering. I asked them what made em think the oil was low all the time.

They told me " cause the oil light was on"

After I finshed laughing, I pulled the dipstick. The bastard must have had 15 litres of oil in it. It went almost all the way up the dipstick.

The oil light, (or the pressure guage) is there for one thing. To tell you there isnt enough oil being pumped to build up pressure inside the engine and pump the oil around.

The moral of the story is. If the guage is not measuring or measuring low. Dont assume the guage is buggered. The oil pump may be stuffed and you may be buying a new engine.

Fix the guage/semder if its stuffed and dont rely on luck.

 

Prognosis

Oil galleries in heads are partially blocked + after 2 weeks the oil in lifters has drained back = tapping noise.

OPS/guage reading low = normal for Zeds :wacko:

Remedy: Have an engine oil flush carried out.

 

Re: Oil sitting.........

2nd

I drained the oil from my zed and it was sitting empty for over a week, anyways after i changed the filter and topped it back up I was getting the same tapping noise. It went after running the engine for about 15 mins.

 

Can i just amend this statement

This statement is for rooted Temp measurement systems.

My NA guage works fine above 1 bar at idle and 4-5 bar normally when driving. There is no reason or excuse not to have this working in any car. It comes down to how lucky do you feel!

Making sure this works comes down to your maintenance regime. To have it not working is a risk.

 

WTF are you on about?

We are talking about Oil Pressure! NOT temp.

The OEM sender (OPS) & guage are notorious for reading low/not at all.

 

Typo, should have read "oil pressure" not temp

Comments are still valid. (i know a lot dont work but they should)

You dont have to get narky. I think it was obvious what i meant when I was talking about 1 bar and 4 bar pressure. The whole thread is about oil pressure!

I hope you are not saying that cause a lot of them dont work thats OK !! Cause its not an excuse. Thats a disaster waiting to happen. You have to fix it so it does work. End of story.

 

Narky?

I get pissed off with answers being incorrect or misleading.

Your comment would be more valid if correct & also constructive if it pointed out OEM guage deficiency & how to fix it.

 

In my experience it is always

the sender that is faulty. Not the guage. And I don't remember hearing of many oil pump failures.

Mine occasionally will register 0 and it is an uncomfortable feeling. But it isn't something that you can fix with any certainty that it will behave itself forever.

Drilling the hole in the sender out to 1.5mm might help. Or you can replace the sender every time it goes on the blink. The real cause I believe is the sender's proximity to the LH turbo (TT) or manifold (NA). Perhaps making up some kind of heat shield for the sender would help.

Cliff

 

Excuse me, I thought thats what your tech section was for !!!

I wasnt about to rehash whats in the tech section.

I apologise that a Typo doesnt measure up to your lofty expectations of accuracy in every post that is in the forum. I think your comment has more to do with I questioned your post which in itself wasnt very explainitory was it?

It would have been enough for you to point out "dont you mean oil pressure here?" Instead of "WTF are you talking about" Thats just plain derogatory.

You knew exactly what I was talking about and what I said is still correct. So I recon you should get off your high horse.

 

It's everyone's Tech section

Unless correct info is offered in Zed-related posts, how will others learn from us & know what to look for in Tech section?

I was referring to a large majority of your tech posts, not ALL posts. In the past, when I've pointed out errors, you chose to ignore the corrections which could mislead others into not knowing who was correct, hence my jumping on you, this time.

 

I agree with your point Graham but how would one check the accuracy

of their gauge? Is there an easy way? Really, you need to have both your gauge and a test gauge joined up at the same time to compare readings wouldn't you?

 

Re: I agree with your point Graham but how would one check the accuracy

Pretty much, You need to put an temporary auxilary guage in the system and see if it matches the Stock guage.

K-zed will probably know the right spot to temporarily fit it, cause I havent had to do it.

If 1 bar is accurate from this guage in question at highway speeds, that isnt enough and should be checked further. It should be 4 bar or over at cruise speeds.

But as I and everyone has been saying here. The senders do have a propensity to fail. So it may just be the sender. But why take the risk !

Spose you could take the scatter gun approach and just change the sender and see if the guage goes back to correct!!

 

Re: It's everyone's Tech section

Ahhh, I see.

So you found ONE, Hmmmm, So this constitutes the majority of my 2,080 posts. Even if you found ten it doesnt justify that statement does it?

Your arithmatic is pretty poor !!

Its about time you backed off that statement dont you think?

 

Further to this you didnt mention this later post in that same thread

Check the ECU thread after Hitek Bob chimed in. I acknowledged the mistake and thanked him.

What was that about me not listening??

Me thinks you are on pretty thin ice.

But of course you never make mistakes.

I seem to remember not long ago a post of yours where it took most of a day to get a transmission out, and a bitch about the top bolts being hard to get to.

Ummmm Wrong, you did it the wrong way!!!

I think that just about sums up the fact that humans make mistakes, and you should stop holding yourself way above others in some effort to be Zed God. You dont know everything. Live with it!

 

John Garvin's fix inside

HERE.

To connect an a/market gauge one needs to T into the existing OPS location.

 

Thanks guys.