Ok, so I replaced the front cover o-ring, replaced the thermal pellet with a solid one from fc3s.com, and whent back to 20w50 valvoline motor oil. Still have low oil pressure at idle when engine is warmish. Startup idle pressure is 70psi, it hits 5psi about when the water temp needle starts moving and eventually reaches 0psi. I've also confirmed this with an aftermarket mechanical guage.

What else can cause my problem?

oh yeah, when my car is fully heated up it also doesn't idle unless I max out the idle adjust screw, which will make it idle at about 800rpms. 88SE RX7

 

When you drained your oil, did you see any metal shavings?

Have you had your oil cooler flushed? It may be clogged, and limiting flow after the bypass closes (as the car warms up).

 

What would be the best way to flush out an oil cooler? varsol tank with a pump and just pump the **** through it?

 

I've never seen anything but oil come out of my pan. Will a general service station flush my oil cooler or do I need to take it to my mechanic? just asking because I'm a few blocks from a service station and 15 miles from my prefered mechanic

 

I believe most radiator shops can flush the oil cooler for you.

 

You're gonna love this... but pull the pan again, and take out the large bolt on the front cover and look at the spring under the bolt. Although rare, they do break (usually at the ends), and will give lower oil pressure, especially at idle.

 

HMM.....i'm having a low oil pressure problem too
and it gets worse the warmer the motor is. And it just so happens that I swapped coolers a while back because the original was leaking around the thermostat retaining plug. I'll have to check that out when i get a chance.

 

I am having the same problem in my rotary 88 B2200 I tore the motor apart and the only thing that I saw wrong was that the oil pump was all tore up ..

so I am in the prosses of rebuilding it puting in a new oil pump with also new oil psi regulators.

I will keep you all posted on what I find out after its all put back together and running again.

Later
Dan Atkins

 

ok, so the radiator shop said all they could do is run a solvent through the oil cooler on account of it being aluminum, which they didn't think would do anything. I think it would but I don't question the experts. So I went down to autozone and found this product "oil Flush" which you add to your oil right before an oil change to dislodge grease, tar and other things. I was wondering if this might do the trick. Only problem I forsee is that it says only run the engine at idle for 5 minutes after adding and the the engine can't be warm when added; I don't think the oil cooler thermostat closes within 5 minutes of engine start.

 

I checked the oil cooler issue by removing the oil cooler bypass pellet to see what impact it would have, which was none. I also checked the oil pressure control valve spring when I first removed the cover and it was within factory spec according to my hayne's manual.

 

Hey, did you ever resolve your issue? I am having the same problem with my FB after I changed to an earlier model cooler.

 

Did you spec out your oil pump with feeler gauges to make sure it is still ok?

Also, when you take apart the oil pump look for damage that might point to contamination.

 

I'm actually having problems with high oil pressure. At idle today it was up to 45. At 3000rpms it hit just around 85-90. I'm looking through the haynes manual, haven't found anything yet.

 

Aftermarket gauge telling you this?

 

no, haven't tried yet. this was the highest reading i've gotten (just today). I've noticed it SLIGHTLY high before, but knew there was room. the idle pressure at 45 is what caught my eye.

EDIT--after rereading the haynes manual, it says idle pressure should be around 14-54psi. and 64-78psi at 3000rpms. the idle pressure they listed is higher than what i remembered. should i still look into it as my pressure is still on the high side?

 

Dude, don't even come here asking about an oil pressure prob with the stock gauge.

Its like trying to guess how many gallons of water the N. Atlantic has in it.

If you are concerned about it....get a reading from something other than the stock gauge.

The stock gauge is bad at best.

James

 

Ok, so what's considered normal oil pressure?

 

k, thanks.

 

I thought I'd just update this thread instead of making a new post.

I speced out the oil pump yesterday with feelers using the bruce torentin method and it was definetly in spec, althought there are some slight scratches on the sides of the gears which made my buddy think that it needs replacing.

I speced out the rear oil pressure regulator, the one that sits in the oil pan. The specing just involved checking for wear, contaniments and pushing on the plunger to make sure it moved smoothly which is kinda hard to tell since it take about all the force I can muster to move to an open position from which it instantly jumps back to closed the second I let go.

The engine is in pieces right now and I have yet to find nething out of the ordinary. If anyone has suggestions on what to look for in terms of oil pressure problem causers, let me know. I'd hate to slap this thing together with all new housings and apex seals and have low oil pressure. Thanks in advance for any assistance.

 

Speced the main bearing clearnaces for the E-Shaft, they were way within spec. Only difered 2/1000 of an inch at most.

Used the FSM method for checking the oil injectors. The two I could remove failed the suck test. Damn that was nasty. I don't see why these being bad would cause low oil pressure seeing as how they have the OMP making sure they only get so much oil. I have a side question for this problem, and that is can I just leave them in and go to premixing, since my omp lines are also bad, or do I have to replace the injectors neways?

 

Oil injector issues won't cause low oil pressure...It's a mystery to me so far.

If you are going to go premix, just get some bolts with the appropriate thread pitch.

 

hey, could the pilot bearing/oil seal be a culprit? Cause They were almost welded to the e-shaft. The seal came out in pieces and the bearing took about 30 minutes with a pilot bearing puller. The bearing is the solid piece I'm assuming and the weird black mesh thing was either the seal or what was left of it.

I honestly don't think it would cause my problem because if it had failed wouldn't it leak oil into the transmission which woulda showed up as a an oil leak? Which I hadn't noticed.

 

Those parts by themselves cannot cause an oil leak.


-Ted

 

This is driving me nuts! I thought my problem was bearings and the front cover o ring, but the bearings weren't in bad shape and tried to fix the stupid $2 oring and wound up ****** up the whole engine=thrust bearing dropped!!!!!!!!!! This time I'm replacing everthing that touch oil!

 

I never hear anyone talk about the front oil regulator? I pulled it from the front cover and found the spring to be 3MM OFF SPECS! I think this could be my problem. Its not even on the mazdatrix site. ?