This is my first post, I hate to be the guy asking a question that's already been answered a thousand times but I tried everywhere and could not find an answer. I was driving my 87 NA the other day as per usual nothing out of the ordinary, when at a stop light the car died and cranked forever and wouldn't start and I had to push it to a parking lot and then tow it home eventually. What's interesting is that after this happened, my oil pressure gauge wont read more than 0, the needle moves a tiny bit when cranking to suggest that the gauge itself might be working though. It used to build pressure while cranking and now its reading 0. I am not leaning towards engine catastrophe because I was just idling at a stop light and so far I have replaced the afm, checked to make sure I am still getting spark which I am, and checked to make sure I am also getting fuel which I am. I also did a compression test today and was in the ballpark of 85 - 90 so I'm stumped and it feels like too much of a coincidence for the car to stop running at the exact same time that the oil pressure gauge starts reading 0. Yes I have oil.
Thank you in advance.

 

welcome to the board.

you confirmed fuel and spark. that's good. so my next question is have you checked to see if the engine got flooded? if not, then maybe you should check and deflood it.

as far as the oil pressure goes, the gauge should move while cranking, but how much it moves will be dependent on RPM and that would be dependent on a few things (battery strength, grounding, flooding, starter health, etc.) until you get the engine started and running, you're not going to see any significant movement of the oil pressure gauge.

 

I have deflooded it a few times, and what’s interesting is that I swear it used to build oil pressure when I would crank the car over slowly but surely creep up to a number whereas now it’s just holding 0. That’s good to know though because it’ll allow me to switch my focus to other places, thank you.

 

bump, I am back to diagnosing after taking a break and am at a complete loss. I read somewhere that one person had a similar issue and replaced their oil pressure sending unit and it got their car running again but I have not heard of that happening to anybody else with oil pressure problems. Any input would be great I have tried what feels like nearly everything at this point.

 

i am willing to bet that the oil pressure sender is not at the root of the car not starting.

i would go back to the basics again, and go through everything with a fine-toothed comb.

where and how did you check for fuel?