Oil pressure

[el-saturn]

........................sorry to say it isn't a seal or pan gasket, where you have almost zero pressure: i can't understand why anyone has an electrical solution because even the caution "switch" is also under pressure (which ignites or activates your red light on the dash) and you'd have to have a leak in the pressurized areas (pump and bearing locations: cams, crank etc..) not in the return direction! sandy PS: i'd be scared shitless with zero pressure and wouldn't dare to even restart the engine sj

[denicholls2]

Those of us on this side of the pond have doubtless heard worn lifters on big American car engines. They idle at under 500 RPM, so a single bad one is very distinct. Tick. Tick. Tick. Once for every 2 RPM. If you know this sound, then the one you're likely to hear is twice as fast and lower in pitch. Repair manuals used to suggest holding a big screwdriver to your ear and to different places on the block to hear noises clearly, and it's a good idea; you'd be surprised at how well you can pinpoint noises with this technique.

If you have low pressure, its two most likely causes are a worn out pump and one or more worn out rod bearings. TickTickTickTickTick at 1 RPM is a single rod bearing about to give up. The rumble, or death-rattle, comes in with a lot of them (your bearings, main and rod, are all worn out, or the pump is bad.) In my experience, single bearing failures are more common. Perhaps I'm just unlucky enough never to wear engines out evenly.

In my youth I was fool enough to buy an ill-maintained 1968 Opel Kadett that had been lube-thickened to suppress this noise. I took it home, changed the oil, watched the 200-weight goo ooze out of the drain plug, and started experiencing idle idiot light, which I paid little attention to until it became a runtime idiot light, at which point I hoped it was the pump and not the big end. The related onset of TickTickTick suggested a failure of hope, and I got about 500 more miles from the beast before the thinned-out con-rod bearing spun and the engine seized. I pushed in the clutch and coasted into a parking space at school, ending my brief experience with the most expensive car (per driven mile) I ever owned.