What happens when loose oil pressure?

[jdmetcalf57]

My '99 K3500 is getting a new engine at GM's expense. Obviously I want to take good care of this new engine.

Does anyone know what happens when you loose oil pressure running down the road? In most engines now one sees the light in time and they end up trashing the engine.

They could have programed the computer to sound an alarm and/or shut the engine down but I don't think they did. I have seen industrial engines with a low oil pressure shut off and have been thinking about adding one to my engine.

I know this doesn't happen too often but there is several possible scenarios where you could loose oil pressure for a 10cent part failing. I could see loosing oil pressure for the following reasons.

Oil cooler lines fail
Filter blows seal that didn't seat right.
Not get the drain plug in right. Remember the Jetliner that nearly crashed because of this one.
Bypass valve failure.
Blowing a crank seal.

[Peter J. Bierman]

That would be a tricky divice.
What if your engine shuts down wile on a railroad crossing, you saved the engine but lost your truck and even worse, your life :eek:

On most moving construction equipment the engine shuts down partially so you can move to a safe place but are not able to get any work done.
This will limit the damage to the engine but gives you the safety of getting out of harms way.

I am serious about this, I have seen it happen.
The train took the nose of a 40 ton 6X6 dumptruck clean off!! Thank God the driver got out in time!

Peter

[patrick m.]

check high perf magazines such as Jegs, or Summit. you can get a light system w/buzzer if desired to go off at any point you setup.

[Hye]

In my experience, over temp has been a bigger problem than low oil pressure.

[jdmetcalf57]

Peter makes a good point. Would be safer to go with the buzzer thing.

I'm not as worried about the overtemp thing because you know when you are pulling hard and should be looking at the gage. Also overtemp is not something that happens immediately but you can trash a motor with no oil pressure very quickly.

[JohnC]

Wire a warning device up to the lift pump. Kill 2 birds with one stone. I'd stay away from something that shuts down the engine, though. Safety and the complication of getting it started...

[DA BIG ONE]

Plum in an oil accumulator 3 quart, or more wire to discharge oil into motor and shut down motor when pressure gets to danger zone, an adjustable pressure regulator is good here.

A bypass switch bypassing the pressure trigger can be wired to use the oil accumulator as a pre-lube setup at startup.

[Scooby]

I put a low oil psi/hi water temp ALARM on my 83 k2500 with 390 stroker motor. I got an oil psi switch normally used for turning the idiot light on the dash, and a temp sender also for turning idiot light on. These both supply a ground, and I hooked them up to ground a warning horn under the dash. It works great. I put the water sensor near the tstat, and when I am standing on it lettin the truck dig, I can hear the horn just barely getting a little ground from the hot water coming from the heads. As soon as the fuel gets cut back, it quits. It lets me know the carb is doing it's job too !! I have thought about putting an oil pressure switch on my 6.5 with an alarm- especially after reading about the oil cooler lines failing.