hbomb88

I got a 1988 GT 5.0 with only 38,000 miles on it and when i changed the oil i noticed that it was leaking out of the front of the passenger side valve cover. It leaked enough to see it comming out as i poured in the new oil. Now my oil pressure is also really low on the last line on a stock gauge. Is this my only problem causing the loss of oil pressure, or could there be others causing the low oil pressure?

NegadivOne

Well that would definatly cause low oil pressure. Are you sure the car doesnt have 138000 and not just 38000?

hbomb88

yes im sure i bought it from the original owner older man who couldnt drive it anymore, and when he had it he didnt drive it much at all. The car has been sitting alot of its life. When he bought it was stored for 4 years then driven very little. Now that i have it it only gets driven in the summer a little bit.

luckythirteen13

well what i would do is pull the valve covers, replace the gaskets and reinstall the covers. fill the engine with oil and drive it around. see how that goes and then let us know how the pressure is

roundman

5.0 engine oil capacity is 5 quarts, don't overfill the engine!
also the stock gauges can be notoriously inaccurate, but even so, the pressure should increase some as the engine rpms are increased, does yours do this? if yes, you have no worries. if not, get a good 0-100 psi pressure gauge and install it in place of the oil pressure sending unit down low on the front of the engine next to the oil filter and read the real oil pressure and see what you have.
For reference, my '88 with over 100,000 miles still puts out over 50 psi when oil is hot at idle speed with 5W-30 synthetic oil in the crankcase. The normally accepted rule of thumb for oil pressure is 10 psi for every 1,000 rpm engine speed.
If your pressure doesn't show at least 30 psi, it could be that sludge in the oil pan has settled over time while the car was sitting and it is restricting the flow of oil into the oil pump or plugged the oil pump pick-up screen. You will need to drop the oil pan and clean out the pan and screen if this is the case with yours.

hbomb88

The oil pressure gauge does work and move as the RPMS increase. I dont know if the gauge is accurate anymore. The oil level in the car is right on not too much in it. At idle the pressure gauge is on the last line in the "normal" area on a stock gauge. After closer inspection the the valve covers the passenger side does show some signs of leaking from the front and back of the cover, but the driver side looks ok.

blown87Gt

replace the gaskets they are prob dry rotted

88GT40

hey if you put in the mechanical gauge let me know cause mine does the same thing and i'm gonna try to put one in too but i'm intersted to see what happens

vfast

some of the late 88 and 89 had dipsticks that read wrong..mine was one of them...I would replace the pcv valve and screen..I would also use bg Products MOA the clean the engine....this is the ONLY stuff I would use..

settled4automatic

my gauge in my 95 went bad, scared the "Crap" outta me. ended up just being the sending unit. not sure if this helps, i didn't see whether you had put a manual gauge in place of the unit on the engine yet or not. hope it helps though
-kyle-