Oil Pressure issue

[JPRENDY]

Hey all - New to this forum. I have a 2000 Tahoe LS with the 5.3. Needed to get into oil pan - terrible clicking in the back of the oil pan. Winds up a flywheel to drive plate bolt worket it its way loose. I get that torqued upped. Now after replacing the gasket and getting it all tightened up I get a " oil pressure " light and the guage wobbles a bit reads about 30 then does a dive to just above 0. Hovers till I cut the engine. When I start it back up- same process 30 - to 35 for two minutes then drop! I'm thinking it is the oil pick up tube not being seated properly ? Any other thoughts? the irony of all this - I had a slow slow drip at the pan for nearly three years. Qt of oil a month kept things up to level. I finally got ambitious when this clicking came along. - the pan seal is as dry as the sahara no leaks all great - now I probably have to crack this new seal. My only other thought - since the differential carrier is still on the floor of the garage, would the absence of the this four wheel drive part cause the faulty pressure reading? Any other reason for this drop in pressure? Am I correct in assuming that an oil pan pick-up tube air leak might cause this? Before I crack this pan again - because you know when I put a new "O" ring on and tighten the pick up tube, this seal will begin to leak.

PS - I dont ever remeber working on a vehicle that took so much work to get to the oil pan!?

 

[YukontGetThis]

a guy on here has a thread about some oil pressure sensor going out on the back out of the motor.. try replacing that?

 

[JPRENDY]

Thanks - I just went through that thread - have a hard time thinking the sender went coincidentally! Am hoping someone else had the issue and could tell me - "it is the torque of the pick-up tube" or "the pressure needs to build - let it run, I don't dare let it go for more than a few minutes with the low pressure light on - No way I'm putting that diff carrier backin until I get this baby figured out - I need corroberation as much as anything!

 

[YukontGetThis]

well, you shouldnt even have touched the pickup tube.. idk what it looks like down there but i pulled the pan on my cobra a million times, never had an issue with pickup getting messed up.. unless it brackets to the pan somehow?

 

[JPRENDY]

In order to see the bottom of the engine components and if anything had dropped down into the pan it was necessary to remove a baffle and the pick up tube. Once I could see up into the block I slowly turned the fly wheel to get the engine components to slightly move as to inspect them. It was at this stage I noticed the fly wheel bolt just spinning and rattling. I read up on the procedure to tighten in Haynes. Made perfect sense, the noise and the loose fly wheel bolt. No major components cracked or warped (that I could see) so I began the process of putting her back together. After following the directions of replacing the "O" ring on the pick-up tube. I tighened it very firmly but didn't torque it! I'm guessin probably 40 ft lbs? This morning I have found out the V6 requires that bolt to be set at 66 ft/lbs, but I have no diffinitive spec for V8. So I am about to drop the pan again and re seat the pick-up tube- to the V6 spec of 66 ft/lbs.

I have a leak free seal for the first time in probably five years, I think I found my noise problem, so I want desperately for somebody to tell me, truthfully - " the pressure will pick up, no need to crawl under in 20 degrees and redo all that work". or " Did you re-set the What-ya-ma-callit", etc, etc. You know the minute I get the oil pressure problem fixed I'll never get a seal on that pan again! You do realize that!

So the overalls are going on and I'm going under, my fingers are numb already! I hate the cold!

 

[YukontGetThis]

i live in florida so idk what the hell your talking about

 

[bottomline2000]

this happened to me after I had my transmission replaced. all I did was pull the oil filter and put it back on and my oil pressure went back to normal. Still don't know what made it do that. It was like some kind of vacuum formed or something. Its been over a year since this happened.

 

[zyka1]

I had this problem with my 200 Yukon also, changed the oil and filter and went to synthetic oil Castrol GTX Magnotec. What a difference? Stable oil pressure reading less knocking noice and smother proformance.

 

[JPRENDY]

All is good. as soon as I re-seated the oil pick-up tube the pressure settled nicely at 60. The flywheel bolt was the culprit on the noise it seems; as the very loud clicking noise is gone. I'll tell you the @#$% you have to go through to get the oil pan off is ridiculous! terrible engineering.