3.8l oil pressure ?

[Ricky Bobby]

have a 96 lesabre with the 3.8l in it when u start car cold has pressure when it warms up drops to nothing if u keep the rpms up u get pressure back is that the pump in these things or is there something else to check??

also do u have to pull motor to swap pump if it is the pump??

[juicedimpss]

if you have a cheap oil filter on it(fram or likewise) try a different filter.

[Ricky Bobby]

its a filter the kid got from firestone where he works i was reading that the pressure relief can stick or become sloppy causing no oil pressure at idle...


will get a new filter tonite and try it since there was never an issue till 2 days after he did oil change

[mrz28M6]

sure sounds like an oil pressure sending unit...

[BAD LS1]

I agree on sending unit, my saturn project would faintly turn the oil light on at idle after the rebuild of the engine... Pulled it out, tested it - never went o/l with a resistance test, went to 1000 ohms when i depressed it with an tiny Allen wrench which was enough to turn the light on at idle. Replaced it and solved the issue. Would stand to reason that it would/could act the same with a psi gauge in the cluster which works off voltage feed back too. Easy likely stuff first before you rip the front cover off the motor to attack the relief valve. It could be worse! Haha

[Ricky Bobby]

Ya have to check all this out its not at my house and I'm trying to help a friends brother till I get time to go investigate first hand

[spooln30]

First, hook up a oil pressure gauge and check the psi. If its where it should be then it's just the sender or the wiring, most likely the sender. If the psi is still low then you could have a weak pump. To replace these you need to drop the oil pan. Dropping the pan is a PIA on some of the models with the 3800. Yours I'm not sure.

[brotherbenn83]

More often than not it is the sender, or the housing it is in; my 3.8L LeSabre shows 148psi oil pressure. Like was mentioned, hookup a mechanical gage to check it for real if you are worried. If it really is low, try running a thicker oil or some lucas oil stabilizer if you don't want to mess with replacing the pump...chances are the car isn't worth it.

[Ricky Bobby]

Ya car isn't worth it changed filter seemed to help a little. Gonna run it till it goes boom.

[BadAzzGTA89]

I would say sending unit for.sure..
Is the sending unit leaking by chance?

[spooln30]

So your not even going to hook up a mech gauge to make sure? It would only take 10mins to install and IMO its def worth the effort.