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Oil Cooler?

Chevy305 said:
I don't have a stock gauge... This is how my dash looks:

View attachment 49357


You know I would prefer it to be fluid related...

Oh and a little HIJACK in my own thread:
Tom: I just calculated my milage yesterday while I filled up and I hit 10.5!!! :D Thats about 25% better milage off the ACES IV!!! :D :D :D :bow:
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That's awesome, Glenn, thanks for letting me know that..:waytogo:

getting back to your issue, you did say that your gauge was mechanical and not electrical, didn't you? I missed that part.. How many miles on the engine? are the bearings and oil pump original?

As was said, if the motor has high miles, it's likely that your clearances are getting large enough to see the drop in pressure..I guess it's decision time, really.. changing out the oil pump may not solve the issue, but it's easier to try than rebuilding the bottom end if money is tight.. Thinking back, my dad changed the oil pump on his 68 camaro, and that brought his pressure back up somewhat.. that was about 10 years ago, and now the motor has over 80,000 on it, and now he's looking to rebuild it, so i guess you could say he just delayed the inevitable.

In any event, I don't believe your issue is fluid related, and an oil cooler won't solve anything. I'd hate to see you spend your money in the wrong direction until you get this solved.


Tom
 
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4by4bygod said:
That's awesome, Glenn, thanks for letting me know that..:waytogo:

getting back to your issue, you did say that your gauge was mechanical and not electrical, didn't you? I missed that part.. How many miles on the engine? are the bearings and oil pump original?

As was said, if the motor has high miles, it's likely that your clearances are getting large enough to see the drop in pressure..I guess it's decision time, really.. changing out the oil pump may not solve the issue, but it's easier to try than rebuilding the bottom end if money is tight.. Thinking back, my dad changed the oil pump on his 68 camaro, and that brought his pressure back up somewhat.. that was about 10 years ago, and now the motor has over 80,000 on it, and now he's looking to rebuild it, so i guess you could say he just delayed the inevitable.

In any event, I don't believe your issue is fluid related, and an oil cooler won't solve anything. I'd hate to see you spend your money in the wrong direction until you get this solved.


Tom
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The engine isn't original, its from an 83 Firebird. The engine should have an all original bottom end. I don't know how many miles are on it, but I suspect that it has A LOT of miles on it.
 
Chevy305 said:
The engine isn't original, its from an 83 Firebird. The engine should have an all original bottom end. I don't know how many miles are on it, but I suspect that it has A LOT of miles on it.
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Confirmation of my suspicion of the engine's condition. I vote that same, bearing clearances. Does running something like 50wt change things?
 
ntsqd said:
Confirmation of my suspicion of the engine's condition. I vote that same, bearing clearances. Does running something like 50wt change things?
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I don't know, but I don't think that it needs oil that thick. Kinda seems overkill when I ran 50wt oil in my SM465 last winter...
 
Transmission doesn't have a fluid pump, and relies on the thickness of the gear oil to stick and "climb" under operation for lubrication. Plus it stays in place better (inside bearings and what not) than thinner fluids.
 
ntsqd said:
Try just testing it w/ a thicker oil.
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he posted up on the 18th, that he's got 20/50 in there now, and the problem is still there.

I vote for trying a new oil pump, if rebuilding the bottom end isn't practical / affordable right now..
 
4by4bygod said:
he posted up on the 18th, that he's got 20/50 in there now, and the problem is still there.

I vote for trying a new oil pump, if rebuilding the bottom end isn't practical / affordable right now..
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Missed that post. :rolleyes:
Oil pump does sound like the short term solution then. Personally I'd go with a quality (Melling?) High Volume pump and do NO pressure mods.
 
ntsqd said:
Missed that post. :rolleyes:
Oil pump does sound like the short term solution then. Personally I'd go with a quality (Melling?) High Volume pump and do NO pressure mods.
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It seems the current thinking is that high volume pumps do more harm than good on street cars & trucks.. maybe a non - high volume pump would be better.. I was reading an article about that recently, but I can't recall any specifics.. now I'm curious..
 
The engine has all stock internals, it doesn't need a high volume pump. I was already going to drop the oil pan to replace the rear main seal and i already have all the gaskets I need, so when i have the oil pan off, I might as well replace the oil pump.
 
If we assume that the basic problem is that the bearing clearences are now large enough that the existing pump can not keep up at idle and is only barely supplying enough pressure at speed then why wouldn't you put in an HV pump? The whole idea is to cure the low oil pressure problem due to a high oil volume bleed-off rate, but a stock volume pump (granted, it's likely worn too) isn't able to do that job. Which to buy will come down to an inspection of the existing pump to determine if it is the problem b4 purchase of the new pump. If that much down-time isn't acceptable then I'd go with an HV pump & move on to other projects.

The deal, as I understand it, with using or not using HV pumps is if the engine's demand can be met by a std volume pump then an HV just wastes HP pumping oil that isn't needed.
 
I always ran 15W40 or 20W50 in my 350TBI as a precaution. I felt it'd had a hard life being a logging crummy despite the mere 105,000km on the ticker.

IMO, an oil cooler for your purposes amounts to a complicated band-aid fix. I prefer to avoid them as the lines/hoses add another liability. I think the bearing clearances are your main culprit. Some of the diesel guys may chime in here - I hear some have good success changing the bottom-end bearings to reduce clatter and increase oil pressure.;)
 
Well, its only when opperating for a long time at higher rpm that the oil pressure gets really low. Normally, it is above 20 when cruising and about 15 or higher when idling.

You guys are right though, the bearing clearances are surely causing a pressure problem.

Anyway, for all I know there could be crap caught in the oil pump screen that is restricting flow.
 
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