Bad Day

[Peaches93Z71]

Sooooo...yep. It's just what you see.
Jumped on the interstate and was running about 3000 rpm going up a hill and then flashing lights on the guages. Check guages light was flashing so I checked my guages and no oil pressure. I immediately bumped in nutral, shut the truck off, and coasted to the emergency lane. I looked in my mirror and saw the ploom of white smoke and oil trail. There were no noises and i can't see where the oil came from. It's somewhere on the bottom end but nothing obvious. Any ideas?

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[Caman96]

If you can’t see, we definitely can’t, but sorry to see that.

 

[FLGS400]

Looks like something left the party....

Does your truck have a separate oil cooler with lines to it? Maybe one broke.

Just noticed you're in Polk County. Must have been on I4.

 

[someotherguy]

With that shield in place it may be hiding the leak as well as guiding the oil away from the original leak source. Like FLGS400 mentioned it could be an oil cooler hose that let go.

Hopefully you find it's something simple and get it back together, filled up with oil, and there's no lasting major damage.

Richard

 

[Caman96]

With the pitch of the shoulder of road, it could be an oil line draining over to passenger side a bit.

 

[Peaches93Z71]

I just replaced the oil cooler lines and fittings 5 months ago and they only have 2500 miles on them. They are the first thing I checked but they look ok as far as I could see with a flashlight. The oil filter looks ok from the top too so I'm pretty concerned because those are the best case scenario. Will update as soon as I look at at the house

 

[Peaches93Z71]

Phew, second best case imo. The plastic connector in the oil cooler line fitting broke inside and the line blew out. I'm just praying that several seconds at 3k with 0 psi oil pressure didn't kill the old girl. Well find out though.

At this point I can just throw a new plastic clip in there, change the oil and filter, turn it over till I get oil pressure on the guage, and crank it up. It should be good to go.

BUT... I'm not satisfied with that. That was a new dorman part without many miles on it. I'm mad at dorman, and mad at gm for using fittings like this. I've never liked the design. I know you can easily delete the cooler which would completely eliminate this problem, but I don't want to do that. I live in florida and summers are HOT (last year was over well over 100° multiple days). I think i could install an oil temp guage (not sure what's involved in that) so that I could monitor oil temp. If i did that I would feel better about deleting the cooler.

Should I just replace the plastic for now and run it?

 

[Caman96]

I’d be tempted to replace the whole Dorman line…and probably would.

 

[Peaches93Z71]

I’d be tempted to replace the whole Dorman line…and probably would.

Well, the lines are actually Sunsong because they make the lines for dorman but they charge half price with their own name on it. There's nothing wrong with the lines. The fittings (as in the metal part that threads into the adapter and the plastic clip the sits inside) are Dorman brand. I'm not really worried about the metal part of the fitting. Should I be?

 

[SAATR]

I've replaced the oil cooler lines with engine oil rated industrial hose and JIC fittings to eliminate the factory lines on one my trucks. The worst part is finding an adapter to go from the M20 o-ring fitting at the radiator to a JIC fitting. Cost is about the same as GM cooler lines, especially if you don't have connections at a hydraulic shop.