toplessLx

my 92 has variance in its oil pressure. it was running fine then i let it set over night and half a day when i got in it i took off and didnt look at the gauge. when i made a turn about a 16th of a mile down the road it started tickin and knockin. i looked and had no oil pressure. i started to pull off and the pressure went back to normal so i started back on my way and it dropped off again just for a moment then went up to half of its normal pressure then back down then back to normal. so i drove it back home and it'll still do it. especially when i drop a load on it. please help. has anyone had this problem before? this is my DD

Babybudistmonk

May have sheared a tooth or 2 off the auxiliary shaft / oil pump drive. I think you can pull the distributor plug and inspect the gearing in there. That would also be a great time to put a drill in the oil pump to make sure it is still acting correctly.

And I would find another car to motor around in till you fix this issue or you can blow your engine much much worse than where you're at right now.

toplessLx

Where is the plug? I have coil packs. And does th drill thing work just like a v8?

dreamer1uk

You can also use a mechanical oil pressure gauge and test for exact oil pressure seeing as the stock gauges are some what unreliable.
And nope, you have no distributor so theres no way of you driving the oil pump externaly

zonker

i had a similar problem with a V6 Dodge Truck I owned. You'd drive along a steady speed and all of a sudden the oil pressure would drop, then come back.

it got to the point that i would fix my eye on the gauge and as soon as the gauge went down i'd put the truck in neutral and shut the motor off for 5-10 seconds, then restart it so the oil pressure would come back up.

the problem? it was gasket material in the oil pump pickup screen. the oil pump would suck it up onto the screen until it created a restriction too great to allow the oil through. then when i'd shut it off, the oil suction would stop and the gasket parts would drop down off the screen.

think this could be what's happening to your DD?

Babybudistmonk

Zonker brings up a good point here. I would try that too.

The 2.3L blocks all have a place for a distributor. The timing belt is turned by the crank, which turns the cam and the intermediate shaft. The intermediate shaft is more towards the driver side of the block, which is geared to turn a distributor. The distributor has an allen head looking key on the end of it that turns the oil pump.

When ford went to DIS, they no longer needed the distributor, however, they still needed to rotate the oil pump so they basically took a distributor, cut it off, capped it, and put it in the same hole so you can still drive the oil pump. Its located on the drivers side of the block towards the front of the engine.

I'll have to look at mine a little closer, but you should be able to take that out, and turn the oil pump with an electric drill. That will give you a chance to inspect the teeth on the plug, and if you turn the engine over by hand a little at a time, you can check the teeth on the intermediate shaft.

FoxGT

Happened to me once with my 5.0. The gauge dropped to zero then picked back up twice. A few miles down the road it dropped to zero & stayed. Something got into the oil pump & locked it up. It ended up turning my oil pump shaft into a twizzler before breaking in half. I would check what zonker says. Since it started knocking I would say the gauge is right & something was clogging it. How was the oil level?

toplessLx

great replies guys. however, im an idiot see when that happened i was so p*$&ed i wasnt thinking and checked the oil hot. so it showed full. well we left that day to go to the gf's mom's cause she was in the hospital. when i got back i checked it out and realized my mistake. checked properly there is no oil in the car. so... imma fill it up, change the filter and hope i didnt comepletly destroy the internals. its totally unlike me to not keep check on my fluids. but sometimes you get alot goin on and it slips your mind. so fingers crossed and thanks

toplessLx

ok so i havent been back to updazte but believe it or not when i took my filter off something had punched a hole in it. no joke. never seen that before but that would explain it not having oil. just figured i'd let you know