I had a "similar" problem on my old Alpine. It too would allow the oil
to drain back in to the pan. Since this car had been abused prior to my
owner ship, the engine had Lots of crud in it. It only had 57,000 miles
but already was down to under 100 psi of compression. All of the bearing
were worn out because the PO only added to the oil but basically never
actually changed it. (I can hear the "Oh my God!" out there !!). My oil
gauge would bounce back and fourth rapidly at about 10psi to about 20psi
when idling warm. The filter was completely plugged. I removed the pan
and cleaned all of the gook out. I found a big chunk of crusty gook
lodged in the relief hole in the valve body, which kept the relief valve
partially open at all times. It was closed enough to move "some" oil
through the engine.....but not very much. Needless to say, all of this
crap was removed, cleaned, and put back together. I didn't have the
money at the time to pull the crank and change all of the bearings.
When I restarted the engine with NEW oil and a NEW filter, the pressure
came right up and ran smoothly. The next morning, it had no pressure at
start up. SO I ran it for a while, got it good and hot, then shut it
off. An hour later I came out and removed the pan, and put a big pan
under the bottom of the engine. It continued to drain all of the
remaining oil from the rod bearings. It was dripping only from there.
I then replaced the pan and the filter, and changed the oil and replaced
it with 50w bulk engine oil (It was really cheap, and added one can of
(STP) too. This made the car very happy, it would take several days for
it to drain all the oil back, and the remaining STP film saved the
engine during the start up cranking and first few seconds of running.
The Oil pressure would come up quickly, and the engine ran very
quietly, especially for one that had so much slop in it. At a hot idle,
it had 30psi. Unfortunately, this really did very little to improve the
compression, although it did climb back up a hair over 100 in all four
barrels. Within a year, it melted the #3 piston due to excessive blow
by and wrecked the block and hammered the freshly rebuilt head molten
aluminum chunks that got up on top of what was left of the piston, and
just beat the hell out of it.
BUT the Oil Pressure Never dropped !!!
(This all happened in 1978)
Rich. Looking for a new 64 - 67 Alpine !!
>----------
>From: frodo4(at)ix.netcom.com[SMTP:frodo4(at)ix.netcom.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 1996 4:30 PM
>To: TEdlund(at)aol.com; alpines(at)autox.team.net
>Subject: Re: Oil Pressure Build-Up
>
>You wrote:
>>
>>Our Series V (B395009965) takes an abnormally long time to build up
>oil
>>pressure at start-up. After the engine starts you can hear (I suppose
>its
>>the valve train) quite loudly until the pressure builds then it quiets
>down.
>> If I started the car several times in the same day the problem
>doesn't
>>exist. If the car sits for a day or two between starts the problem
>reoccurs.
>> Its as if all the oil drains back into the sump and the whole system
>needs
>>to be re-primed.
>>
>>I used to think that the problem was a bad anti drain back valve in
>the oil
>>filter until I tried two other filters (another Fram and a Wix which
>is on
>>the car now).
>>
>>The engine was rebuilt about 2,000 miles ago (by someone else). The
>oil
>>pressure (once it builds up) is 55 lbs. when cold and about 40 lbs.
>when hot.
>>
>>Did I get three bad oil filters in a row or is there some other reason
>why
>>the pressure takes so long to build? Could a bad oil pressure relief
>valve
>>cause this? Any advice would be appreciated.
>>
>>Terry Edlund
>>San Diego, CA
>>
>The oil does drain down, and yes I thought the filter was supposed to
>prevent this. Mine will take up to 5 seconds (maybe a bit more) at idle
>to get pressure if left for a few days. How long does yours take.
>Rebuilt my engine about 7k ago.
>
>John
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Sep 05 2000 - 09:25:56 CDT