Oil pressure just went away

With that many miles, think a bit of schmegma got pushed up against the sensor blocking off the flow?

Dan

Sounds like a failed sender to me. I had one that poured oil out like that.

Sender blew. It's on the top of the block behind the intake. likely has a 90* elbow on it to get it away from the intake itself.

I would vote for the sender. My mom actually missed a family funeral because her silverado did this same thing 4 hours from anyone who could pick her up and i wasnt quite bold enough to tell her to drive it anyway.

It should also be noted that they tend to drip or act up long before they blow out entirely. Very good practice to change out a leaky oil pressure sender/switch.

Thanks all. Some time this weekend I'll grope around in the sludge of the backside of the motor and see if I can get it off.

A quick google indicates it's right next to the distributor, clean around it before removing to keep from dropping dirt in the hole. You'll probably need a special "gm sender socket", or channel locks (just be careful with the new one).

Well everyone, the automotive aspect of the FSM shone upon me this day. The weather turned and got up to 60 at the end of January (there is still snow on the ground last weeks blizzard). It turns out it was indeed the oil pressure sending unit and while the location is abysmal (a GM engineer needs a flogging for their packaging!) in 15 minutes I had it out. Trip to autozone got me a replacement for 22 bucks and change. It's back together now and I post this while son is learning how to change the oil.

Good outcome. I always like it when a scare turns into a fairly simple fix

I had a sender go on my '89 C1500 and the sender itself was leaking oil. Prior to replacing, the pressure would fluctuate, but would drop down to nothing at idle. Glad to hear you were able to fix it quickly and cheaply!