QuestionThanks for your promp aswner. Yes I have 10W30 oil in it so I'll change it--HOW DO i TAKE THE pAN OFF? MUST i TRMOVE THE ENGINE OR CAN IT BE TAKEN OFF WITHOUT TRMOVING YHE ENGINE? AND HOW? tThanke
Bill-----------------------
Followup To
Question -
My 53 kaiser always carried 20lbs oil pressure eaven at idel it was olmost to the 20lb mark.
a coupple days ago I was driving and noticed the oil pressure was low below 10lb and at idle almost no oil pressure
What do you think happened and what can I do about it?
thanks P.S it has 51000 moles on it
Bill
Answer -
That could be something very serious, or it could be minor - so you have to take a couple of steps to sort it out.
#1: Smell the dipstick to see if there is any odor of gasoline on it. If there is, you have an internal leak in the carburetor and your oil has become diluted with gas. This can be very dangerous - both to the car and to you, so don't drive the car or even start it, until you drain the oil and get the carburetor rebuilt.
If this is what happened, I recommend Jon Hargrove's "The Carburetor Shop" in Eldon MO for rebuilding - don't waste your money on the local guys or the auto parts store service - they screw up most of their "rebuilds" in my experience. Of course, if you feel up to it, you can rebuild it yourself if you can find a kit. Jon Hargrove also has the kits. Just read the instructions carefully, work in a clean well lit place, and make sure everything it spotless clean as you put it back together.
If you don't smell gas on the dipstick, and the oil level is not overfull, it is safe to run the engine long enough to make the next step:
#2: Get a mechanical type oil pressure gauge at your local auto parts store and install it temporarily right on the engine block where the factory guage is connected, then start the engine to see if the reading agrees with what you got on the factory gauge. If it does, you have a real problem. If it reads normal oil pressure, relax, your problem is in your guage system.
#3: If the oil pressure turns out to be really that low, you have had a serious mechanical failure inside the engine, most likely a bearing has spun, or perhaps the oil pump pressure relief valve has stuck in the open position - the engine bearings and the oil pump need to be taken apart for inspection. Do not run it any more in this condition - further driving could seriously damage the crankshaft. On this engine, the oil pan has to be removed to inspect the oil pump pressure relief valve, so the bearings can be inspected at the same time.
#4: Since this came on suddenly, I assume it did not occur just after you changed the oil, but just so I don't miss something that obvious, I'll mention that you should only be using SAE30W oil (NOT 5W30 or 10W30) in this engine. You can also use 20W50, but I prefer SAE30W. Just in case you had put 5W30 oil in it, drain that out and refill it with the proper stuff to see if the oil pressure returns to what you are used to.
AnswerOk I'm glad I mentioned that. The modern variable viscosity oils are designed to improve the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) ratings of new vehicles, so that the manuafacturers can more easily meet the government mandated economy goals. They are not what our old cars were designed to use, and they are much thinner than the oils which we would have used in the old days. For an engine in good shape, the usual oil in those days was SAE30W, and as the engine got a few years use on it, we'd switch to SAE40W or even thicker oil to keep the oil pressure up. Now the older style oils are getting hard to find, but NAPA still carries an excellent line of SAE30W oil.
In your cars, switching back to that oil will probably help some, but since you see no oil pressure at idle with the 10W30, I'm still concerned about the other possible problems with your engine - I still recommend you do the first 2 steps to diagnose your problem, unless your oil pressure comes all the way back to what you are used to with the SAE30W oil.
You can take the oil pan off the engine with the engine in the car.
You may have to drop the steering reach rod that crosses under the pan, and you might have to unbolt the motor mounts so you can raise the engine a little bit with a jack (use a flat board on to avoid denting the pan) to make it easier to get at the front 6 or 8 bolts that hold the pan up. You may be able to get the pan off without going to that much trouble, but if you cannot get at all the bolts, that will help.
You may have to manually rotate the crankshaft to maneuver the pan back far enough to drop it, if the engine happens to stop with the #1-2 rod journal on the bottom of it's stroke - but that will be easy to determine once you get the pan bolts loose.
Good luck, Bill, and please let me know what you find in there!
Dick
