Oil pressure drop!!

From: STRICKLAND, Tate (tstricklan@shl.com)
Date: Wed Jul 15 1998 - 13:59:00 EDT


I have a puzzling and scary situation with my 97 RC 5.2. Since I got
the truck new, the oil pressure has NEVER read below or above 60-80
lbs. It went up slightly (1mm perhaps) when I installed synthetic,
but that's it. When I would rev the motor, the needle would increase
slightly. Didn't matter if I was idling or flooring it 60-80 lbs (hard
to guess with these non linear values on the gauges - about 1/4to the
right of center on that "0"-"40"-"110" crazy thing). No mods except
for the TB smoothing and plug wires. Check engine light has been
coming on every few days since the plug wire change - started the
truck with an electrical connector plugging into a vacuum tree mounted
near the driver's rear of the intake unplugged (sorry - don't know
what to call it - paid for my manual, but it's not in yet). Got a
check engine light - plugged it back in - still got the light (running
perfectly). Unplugged battery - voila - no light. Two days later -
light comes on - go to dealership and they reset "upstream o2 sensor
open to voltage" error - no light - two days later - light. - I unhook
battery, no light, ect (just waiting for an opening where I can see
the dealer - they're always busy). Oil changes have been dealer,
dealer, dealer (10w30 natural I guess), castrol 10w30, syntec 5w50
with magnetic drain plug, syntec 5w50, and syntec 10w30 (where I'm
staying) with a dose of Prolong oil treatment. 5,000 mile changes
with the synthetic and filter changes at each 2500miles with the
synthetic.

I pull into the barber shop parking lot yesterday afternoon and looked
down at my oil pressure - 25-30 lbs!!! About an eighth of an inch to
the left of center!!! Sh!t fire - I thought I was gonna have a
cardiac! If I shut her down for a while, I can go out and start up
and the oil pressure goes to 60-80 and stays there till I come to my
first stop or depress the clutch for any length of time, then I'm back
down to 25-30. Give it gas and the pressure rises to "normal"
(60-80). Varies with rpm by a wide margin now.

Any ideas on why this changed all of a sudden???

To anyone who actually reads all of this long winded thing - thanks
for at least reading it! What do y'alls oil pressures look like???

Tate



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