Oil starvation, worth even tearing apart?

[dudeX]

Well, its been one thing after another which i dont mind cause i like working on my car but this one is just plain sadistic. After doing

timing belt, bse, brake work, 02 sensor, and various other things i finally get the CEL off and go for a drive. After driving for a bit on the

freeway i get off to get some fuel. As Im about to get back on the freeway coming up to a light my engine dies. I think i may have left it i

n 4th while braking and it bogged. So i start it back up and drive down the freeway for a mile or so and get a low pressure (pretty much

zero) on my gauge and i pull it off the freeway and shut it down. Right before shutdown i heard what sounded like a rattling sound

coming from the oil gears. After getting the car flat towed home, my inspection finds a missing oil pan drain plug. Do i have any chance

at being able to rebuild this motor or is it probably complete junk. I didnt redline it but i definitely got into boost shortly to test my o2

sensor. I really love my car and she has quite a ways to go to get her where i want but this is a massive setback. So has anyone ever

starved a motor of ALL oil during operation and been able to reuse any motor parts for a rebuild? Last thing, my engine never seized

and i can still turn the crank just as smoothly as when i did the timing (which is still spot on after an entire 350 miles!). So what are your

thoughts?

 

[awdjosh]

Put a drain plug back in it and some oil....if it still makes horrible noise then your ####ed.

 

[LandSpeed-DSM]

Well, its been one thing after another which i dont mind cause i like working on my car but this one is just plain sadistic. After doing

timing belt, bse, brake work, 02 sensor, and various other things i finally get the CEL off and go for a drive. After driving for a bit on the

freeway i get off to get some fuel. As Im about to get back on the freeway coming up to a light my engine dies. I think i may have left it i

n 4th while braking and it bogged. So i start it back up and drive down the freeway for a mile or so and get a low pressure (pretty much

zero) on my gauge and i pull it off the freeway and shut it down. Right before shutdown i heard what sounded like a rattling sound

coming from the oil gears. After getting the car flat towed home, my inspection finds a missing oil pan drain plug. Do i have any chance

at being able to rebuild this motor or is it probably complete junk. I didnt redline it but i definitely got into boost shortly to test my o2

sensor. I really love my car and she has quite a ways to go to get her where i want but this is a massive setback. So has anyone ever

starved a motor of ALL oil during operation and been able to reuse any motor parts for a rebuild? Last thing, my engine never seized

and i can still turn the crank just as smoothly as when i did the timing (which is still spot on after an entire 350 miles!). So what are your

thoughts?

You'll probably have to do a tear down of sorts.. pop the pan, check out the main bearings, rod bearings, and look at the bores. You may want to pull the front case off and see if the starved oil pump started to eat anything. Then I would be curious to see what the cam lobes and journals look like. This is what I would do, but I am OCD.

Or... pull the timing belt, refill the pan, prime the pump with a drill, re-time and fire her up and pray.

 

[LOLVTEC]

you could take off your valve cover and see if you see metal shavings. btw take a pic n post it here so we can see the damage.

 

[goodbuds]

look at my pics on my profile and you will see the history of a perfect car going bad and getting rebuild.
it's all up to you weather you junk it or fix it. i can tell you at one point while it sat it the garage for more than a year was covered with crap it looked like a 300 dollar pile of $hit.

 

[JusMX141]

Descriptive thread titles? We require them....so perhaps you should edit your thread title before this thread mysteriously vanishes.

 

[dudeX]

Yeah, I will be pulling the motor in a few days. As I go deeper into it i will

definitely get some pics and post them. I thought about adding more oil and

seeing if it ran okay but I was planning on a rebuild anyways, just kinda wish i

didnt get forced into it. I also didnt want to make the situation worse if I may

have gotten lucky somehow and still have useable crank and cams! Anymore

info on this topic would be great. As it sits, I always heard that without oil

bearing material will ravage everything and make it garbage. I'm hoping thats

not the case.

 

[LOLVTEC]

well pull the oil pan and valve cover out and take pics. n post them here so that the dsm gods can help you find answers to your questions.

 

[defrag010]

If you can still turn it over, chances are good that everything is machinable. The deciding factor will be if any parts of the crank or any of the rods are black. If they're blackened, then they are probably cracked, and that's no good.

 

[bastarddsm]

Buy some cheap oil, put it in it and see what happens. It's either that or drop the oilpan and pull a rod cap.

The thing is you could have scored the shit out of some bearings, but it might not make any noise, and with fresh oil it might live for a long time. Or it might grenade right away. That's why I suggest put new oil in it and see what it does. All pulling a rod cap is going to show you is that its been hurt. Sometimes you can turn a blind eye to shit an get away with it. However I defiantly wouldn't plan on making big power with a possibly wounded engine.