Hello everyone,
I really need some pointers with a situation I'm having and I dont know what else to check.
My truck is a 95 C1500 5.7 TBI Vin K, with the 4l60e. The truck has 167xxx miles on it and it blew a head gasket because the previous owner was a ****** and ran straight water in the cooling system and the truck had a severe rust and clogging issue. The radiator was so clogged that even with it being filled to the brim, you could pull the plug on it and not a single drop would come out.
One day on the highway it overheated really bad on me and it blew the head gasket.
I thought, okay whatever no problem I'll take this opportunity to give the truck a good going over. So i took off the heads and sent them to a machine shop and had them cleaned and inspected and I also had a valve job done on them. New valve stem seals were put in and the heads were sonic and maganaflux inspected for cracks.
Meanwhile I was at home making good use of the trucks downtime by changing the 1-2 and 3-4 shift solenoids on the trans valvebody for a shifting bump it was starting to develop, and I also changed the TCC while i was there. Put it back and added oil to the trans. I pressure washed the intake manifold myself and removed a lot of gunk and obstructed cooling passages and also cleaned out the EGR passages. I bought a complete upper gasket set and installed new head gaskets, then re-installed the heads and intake manifold and changed the radiator for a brand new one. My truck does have the engine oil cooler in the radiator. Everything was going smoothly, I've done this job over 10 times on different generations of small blocks from an 84 305 to a 99 5.3 and a 2011 ls3 6.2 and have never had an issue.
I finally have the engine all back together with the exception of the valve covers because I was going to run it and adjust any rattling valves. I had my distributor loose to get the timing set. I hit my start switch and after a small adjustment of the distributor the truck fired right up and only a couple of valves tapping a bit. I adjusted two really quick, but I had noticed something was off. From doing this job before I know it is messy. The oil usually squirts all over the place and some valves will even litterally look like they're taking a wee over the edge of the head....yet for some reason with the exception of maybe a little dripping the heads were still dry. When I go inside the cab to check the gauge the "check gauges" light is on and the oil pressure is at a whopping 0... I shut the truck off and immediately checked if i had forgotten to plug in the sending unit, but it was plugged in. I started the truck back up and now it picked up oil pressure for about 15 seconds, the oil started squirting everywhere in the heads like it was supposed to, and then the truck shut off probably because the timing went off since I hadn't tightened the distributor yet. I started the truck again and the oil pressure was dead again with no squirting in the heads. I shut it off because now I was sure the gauge was working.
I checked the oil cooler lines to see if i had kinked one by mistake and they were good. I disconnected the bottom line from the oil cooler and oil did not ooze out like it had when I first took it apart, so I'm assuming oil wasnt flowing there like it was supposed to. Now I was really confused, what the hell is going on?? I never removed the front cover so I didn't touch the oil pump or oil pressure regulator or anything like that.
I will say I did pressure wash the outside of the engine when it was back together to remove all the old grease and dirt buildup and i took care to cover any holes were water could get into the engine. Still, as a precaution I went out and bought oil and a filter and changed both just in case maybe some water had seeped in and the oil pickup tube was picking it up. The oil looked normal and I didn't see any water come out of the pan.
So I'm just wanting different thoughts on this.... What am I missing??? Did the oil pump just decide to fail while the truck was parked?? Is there a way to install head gaskets wrong and block oil flow??? My gaskets did not say top or front on them, so I just installed them with the two little peaks that go towards the intake manifold up and I quickly glanced over all the holes to check if they lines up. Does the oil cooled in these trucks need to be "primed" or something when its replaced??
Any thoughts or ideas on this are greatly appreciated, I don't know what else to check.
Sent from my moto g(6) plus using Tapatalk
I really need some pointers with a situation I'm having and I dont know what else to check.
My truck is a 95 C1500 5.7 TBI Vin K, with the 4l60e. The truck has 167xxx miles on it and it blew a head gasket because the previous owner was a ****** and ran straight water in the cooling system and the truck had a severe rust and clogging issue. The radiator was so clogged that even with it being filled to the brim, you could pull the plug on it and not a single drop would come out.
One day on the highway it overheated really bad on me and it blew the head gasket.
I thought, okay whatever no problem I'll take this opportunity to give the truck a good going over. So i took off the heads and sent them to a machine shop and had them cleaned and inspected and I also had a valve job done on them. New valve stem seals were put in and the heads were sonic and maganaflux inspected for cracks.
Meanwhile I was at home making good use of the trucks downtime by changing the 1-2 and 3-4 shift solenoids on the trans valvebody for a shifting bump it was starting to develop, and I also changed the TCC while i was there. Put it back and added oil to the trans. I pressure washed the intake manifold myself and removed a lot of gunk and obstructed cooling passages and also cleaned out the EGR passages. I bought a complete upper gasket set and installed new head gaskets, then re-installed the heads and intake manifold and changed the radiator for a brand new one. My truck does have the engine oil cooler in the radiator. Everything was going smoothly, I've done this job over 10 times on different generations of small blocks from an 84 305 to a 99 5.3 and a 2011 ls3 6.2 and have never had an issue.
I finally have the engine all back together with the exception of the valve covers because I was going to run it and adjust any rattling valves. I had my distributor loose to get the timing set. I hit my start switch and after a small adjustment of the distributor the truck fired right up and only a couple of valves tapping a bit. I adjusted two really quick, but I had noticed something was off. From doing this job before I know it is messy. The oil usually squirts all over the place and some valves will even litterally look like they're taking a wee over the edge of the head....yet for some reason with the exception of maybe a little dripping the heads were still dry. When I go inside the cab to check the gauge the "check gauges" light is on and the oil pressure is at a whopping 0... I shut the truck off and immediately checked if i had forgotten to plug in the sending unit, but it was plugged in. I started the truck back up and now it picked up oil pressure for about 15 seconds, the oil started squirting everywhere in the heads like it was supposed to, and then the truck shut off probably because the timing went off since I hadn't tightened the distributor yet. I started the truck again and the oil pressure was dead again with no squirting in the heads. I shut it off because now I was sure the gauge was working.
I checked the oil cooler lines to see if i had kinked one by mistake and they were good. I disconnected the bottom line from the oil cooler and oil did not ooze out like it had when I first took it apart, so I'm assuming oil wasnt flowing there like it was supposed to. Now I was really confused, what the hell is going on?? I never removed the front cover so I didn't touch the oil pump or oil pressure regulator or anything like that.
I will say I did pressure wash the outside of the engine when it was back together to remove all the old grease and dirt buildup and i took care to cover any holes were water could get into the engine. Still, as a precaution I went out and bought oil and a filter and changed both just in case maybe some water had seeped in and the oil pickup tube was picking it up. The oil looked normal and I didn't see any water come out of the pan.
So I'm just wanting different thoughts on this.... What am I missing??? Did the oil pump just decide to fail while the truck was parked?? Is there a way to install head gaskets wrong and block oil flow??? My gaskets did not say top or front on them, so I just installed them with the two little peaks that go towards the intake manifold up and I quickly glanced over all the holes to check if they lines up. Does the oil cooled in these trucks need to be "primed" or something when its replaced??
Any thoughts or ideas on this are greatly appreciated, I don't know what else to check.
Sent from my moto g(6) plus using Tapatalk
