Free truck- more

Well, I got my free truck (96 Mazda B-3000) on the road with a new fuel pump and fresh gas. Runs just fine. Driving it home for the first time and it starts to rain. Those wiper blades were a joke, so I pull in an auto parts place and I'VE GOT NO OIL PRESSURE!!..Immediately checked oil level, just fine with brand new clean oil. Well, might as well get the wiper blades while I'm here. Come back out, put the blades on, starts up just fine. Full pressure. (It has a real pressure guage) Drive a few miles up I-95, guage starts to flutter, then goes to zero. Wait on the side of the road for a few minutes. I-95 is a scary place to sit. Start it up, pressure. A few more miles, almost home, does it again, this time I can hear the lifters. Coast into the drive. This truck sat over two years and had not been well cared for before that. I am thinking possibly the oil pick up is gunked up. What other possiblities might there be? I was told it's probably an oil pressure sending unit, but that would not cause the valve noise. How difficult to drop the pan on this thing? 3.0l V-6. I had high hopes for this truck. It looks good, can be a useful hauler, and a decent daily beater, but if I cook the engine I will not be happy.

I would try changing the oil, after all, you added fresh gas. The 3 liter Vulcan engine is pretty tolerant of abuse, it just isn't too fond of overheating. All those "dead" Tauruses and Sables you see, it wasn't usually the engine that went...it was the transmission. My folks have had 3 Tauruses with the Vulcan, one did well over 130,000 trouble-free miles and was traded when the car was in an accident. The other 2? Ironically(?) the newer Taurus (an '02 or '03) had to have the tranny replaced at about 65,000 miles while the '98 has a tranny that drives like it's slipping every now and then. My father says when the '98 dies, he will just park it and remove the tags.

He already changed the oil. He could be right about the pickup, the oil one.

Anybody got a labor book that might give me an idea how long it takes to drop the pan? Thanks

I wasn't sure if yours was 2 or 4wd. I picked 2. It's 5.7 hrs according to the MOTOR manual.

Which means 10 hours in my driveway or 250.00 plus at the shop. Free truck my ass. Well, no damage, so far. LSx is starting to look more and more attractive.

Are you sure you heard lifter noise and weren't just imagining it? The reason I ask is that every other symptom you describe sounds exactly like when my 99 Ranger with the 3.0 litre had its oil pressure sending unit on the way out.

Sounds like some lazy SOB didn't peel the tin foil off the tops on the can cans and just dump them in, now ther cloging the pick up. Some times you get lucky and can back purge the pick up from the oil filter. Drain the oil. Pull the filter. Turn motor rev rotation a few times with a wrench on the crank pulley while an asitant uses a blow gun in the holes on the filter loctation. Now 2 quarts keroceen poured in and pull coil wire and crank with key unlitt it comes out the oil filter spot and repeat the above seraal times you'll find all sorts of goo...... will run out the drian plug.

I know one mech that had a PH8A filter with a hose barb on the end to force paint thinner in to the motor as his flushent. Just like a brake power bleeder, but for engines.

44

44Dwarf wrote: Sounds like some lazy SOB didn't peel the tin foil off the tops on the can cans and just dump them in, now ther cloging the pick up. Some times you get lucky and can back purge the pick up from the oil filter. Drain the oil. Pull the filter. Turn motor rev rotation a few times with a wrench on the crank pulley while an asitant uses a blow gun in the holes on the filter loctation. Now 2 quarts keroceen poured in and pull coil wire and crank with key unlitt it comes out the oil filter spot and repeat the above seraal times you'll find all sorts of goo...... will run out the drian plug. I know one mech that had a PH8A filter with a hose barb on the end to force paint thinner in to the motor as his flushent. Just like a brake power bleeder, but for engines. 44

A friend of mine did this with his MX-6 V6 a while back. It was pretty easy and he probably cleaned all sorts of crap out of the engine. Give it a try.

This sounds like fun, and I can see how it MIGHT work!! Ought to make a marvelous mess, too. Love Grassroots Motorsports.

Take notes and pics as I might have to embark on this myself with my recently acquired '92 Dakota v8...I don't hear valve clatter so I'm hoping it's just the gauge or the sender.

So far I've replaced the oil and substitued 1qt of ATF. I'll replace it again in 500 miles and see what happens, if it's sludge this should help if it's plastic/tin foil caps from the oil bottles this won't help and I'm looking at dropping the oil pan...ugh.

Check if you are getting oil at the rocker arms while idling.

On my '99 cherokee with the 4.0 I had the oil pressure gauge doing the low pressure dance one day until it would go to zero. Parked and not finding anything wrong, called my mechanic and that is what he said to look at. Looking through the oil cap hole I could see oil coming out on to the rockers and pooling, a little throttle and it would go down until back to idle. As it should be.

A pressure sender fixed it.

Good luck

Javier

NoBrakesRacing wrote: I could see oil coming out on to the rockers and pooling, a little throttle and it would go down until back to idle. As it should be.

You say the oil would go back down with little throttle? Why's that? Shouldn't there be more oil as the RPMs increase and the oil pump turns faster?Or does it get sucked down as the valves start moving faster? I'll take a look...hoping it's my sender unit, fingers crossed.

We do a lot of finger crossing, don't we!!

It seems so...in my case there's a rocker cover of some sort that prevents watching the oil through the oil fill hole. I'll try checking the pressure with the manual oil pressure gauge I just picked up from HF.

This weekend I drained the oil- nice and clean. Pulled the filter, not so clean. Applied mucho air pressure to oil filter center opening, put diesel into the crankcase. (about 2 quarts) and cranked it over with the filter off. Crap city. Drained the rest of the deisel out, fresh oil in, new filter. Now after 150 miles, no problems whatsoever. Woohoo, yay Grassroots Cures!!!

Excellent. Glad it wasn't something worse.

Awesome, it sounds like a lot of work but I should try it if it cures the oil problem.

Do you put compressed air into the center hole of the filter adapter? Didn't the diesel and goo spray all over when you cranked it without the filter on?

Took about an hour, maybe a little more. Yes, put the blow nozzle into the center of the filter adapter. Very tight area, did not get a very good seal, so I didn't worry about blowing things up/out. Yes, stuff flew all over when I cranked it over. That's why I used the diesel fuel- a little less likely to go BOOM! than some of the other suggestions. Don't forget, the alternative was to pull the pan, 5.7 hours in the book.

Great! It works again...

why isn't this in the tech tips section?

bluej wrote: why isn't this in the tech tips section?

Yeah!

If the crap was in the pan shouldn't it have drained out especially with some ATF mixed in the oil. Sounds like it was stuck in the oil gulleys etc?

I put a quart of ATF in with the new oil, and will change the oil again next week. I forgot about how expensive that stuff is. Long time since I owned an automatic. How do I put this in the tech tips?