No Oil pressure! What could it be?

[Eliems]

Hello folks, great forum! I am two weeks into owning a beautiful Custom Cobra and loving it! Tight car and power unlike anything I have ever encountered.

Took her in for an oil change as only 350 miles on the rebuild but the car has sat for five years with only occasional sart-ups and the oil was 2 years old.

The mechanic took her for a test drive after the oil and brake-fluid and coolant was changed and noticed no oil pressure on the guage! Had it towed back to the shop!

Changed the filtre in case it had been faulty ... still no pressure! Tried their own guage and no pressure. Oil filtre remained cold and the transparant oil tube to the guage showed no flow.

Tommorow they try to operate the oil pump through the distributer, maybe the drive shaft has broken from the distributer to the pump. maybe the pick-up tube from the oil pan has fallen off, maybe the oil pump quit for some reason??????

Have any of you had this happen?

Thanks!

[427sharpe]

Hope he didn't drive very far!!!!! I know Cobras are loud but.....didn't he look at the gauges?!? A good idea to spin the oil pump, the pump may have lost prime. If so, you should pull the pan and the pump and install a new one if the car was driven very far. Driving with lo/no oil pressure can score the vanes of the pump that must fit tightly to get good pressure, not to mention what it would do to the mains and connecting rod surfaces and bearings. If you pull it down and want to try the old pump, fill the pickup with oil and submerge the pump in oil and spin the input shaft (distributor shaft) by hand until you feel resistance. Reinstall and pray.

[Rick Parker]

If it has a remote oil filter, check to be sure the hoses are not reveresed, attempting to force oil through the filter backwards???????

Rick

[trularin]

Pump drive.

Have the mechanic or someone pull the distributor and run the oil pump with a drill or air motor. Open the port the sensor is screwed into and see if oil is being pumped out of the hole.

No oil, drill running in the correct direction, bad pump.

Fords can eat the pump drive. If you drive is twisted and/or broken, you can get a super heavy duty unit and drop it in.

Hope this helps.

Then again, the car is complete junk...better just give it to me so you will not have these problem to worry about.

[Big-Foot]

I concur in regard to the potential for a broken shaft.

However

There are other possibilities that I have seen.

1) Oil pump is worn and lost it's prime. You can sometimes get them to start pumping again by temporarily overfilling the crankcase by 4-5 quarts to submerge the entire pump in oil.

2) Oil pump Pick-up gasket got sucked in and the oil pump is now sucking air from the crankcase. Again - like temporarily over filling the crankcase - you can see if she now sucks oil in.

You will want to do these operations with a drill motor and dummy distributor or primer shaft.

Good luck!

[PARKERPOWER]

WHAT I FIND ODD IS THAT YOU DROVE IT FROM YOUR HOUSE TO THE THE PLACE TO GET THE OIL CHANGED AND THE ENGINE DIDN'T LOCK UP. YOU MUST OF HAD OIL PRESSURE BEFORE THEY CHANGED THE OIL. I WOULD RECHECK THE STEPS THAT TOOK PLACE AFTER YOU GOT TO THE GARAGE THAT CHANGED YOUR OIL.

[Yetiman]

Are you sure they put oil in it ? Seriously.