Oil pump relief valve

[Bud_Dude]

As mentioned above by flintknapper, the large 30mm crank bolt that holds the harmonic balancer on also "squeezes" a gear behind it (in line on the crankshaft) that is not keyed, and that gear drives the oil pump gear. So if your harmonic balancer bolt is not torqued correctly (to ~305 ftlbs) then the gear behind it might slip and if that happens you can lose oil pressure.

If you're still driving the vehicle maybe switch to a higher viscosity oil for now to see if it helps. Many people use 10/15W-40 if the outside temp is not too low for it.

So I put one of the new Toyota 90915-YZZD3 filters on today on and drained the out of the old one to see what I could see and maybe pour it back into the truck if not contaminated... It of course drains out from the outside (presumably the dirty side) of the filter can not the inside (threaded fitting). After letting the recovered oil settle a while I slowly tipped the bowl and see lots of fine aluminum in it and even a few larger chunks… Hopefully aluminum that was caught by the filter and removed from the circulating oil. I am presuming it’s aluminum since it’s does not respond in the slightest to a strong magnet. So where’s all that aluminum coming from? Certainly not the block… Ughhh, see pic.

So I'm wondering what the shop did wrong on the head when they rebuilt it a year ago... I'd love to believe all this metal is just left over gunk from when they machined the head and did the valve job, but I really have to imagine that was all washed off before reinstalling... Right?

Since I was under the truck anyway and it was a nice day, and since I was also going to replace the oil cooler pressure relief spring and valve, and the oil pump pressure relief spring and valve; and those parts showed up today as well, I just went ahead and installed them.

I was going to change the oil back to the good synthetic stuff, but might just go with less expensive stuff first and see if it’s still happening. This is relatively fresh oil with 6 months and 1800 miles on it.

The oil that was put in the truck by the shop that did the head was changed out with this stuff when I noticed the low pressure, I asked the shop that changed the oil at that time to examine it to see if there was any badness, but it was a drive thru joint in Fresno and about 105 degrees that day, they just said it looked fine and I doubt they really looked at it. When I change the oil tomorrow I'm going to try to drain it through a coffee filter (I'm that'll be fun) and see what it catches.

The perhaps, maybe, good news is that the oil pressure, at least according to the dash gauge is remaining around 1/3 scale at 2000 - 3000 RPM now with the engine at normal 180 degree water temp. I'll put the T back on and a mechanical gauge and see what the actual pressure is. So, did the filter or relief valves fix that? The pressure still drops quite low at idle of 800-1000 rpm. There did not seem to be anything bad about the old springs or valves that I replaced, not to say that some piece of grit wasn't hanging one of the valves up. Both springs just fell out, but the valves on both needed to be pulled out with a little magnet on a stick but took little to no force. The new springs are perhaps 0.5-1.0 mm longer than those I pulled out, hard to imagine that would make a significant difference in pressure.

What do y’all think?

 

[flintknapper]

Filter.

 

[BILT4ME]

So I put one of the new Toyota 90915-YZZD3 filters on today on and drained the out of the old one to see what I could see and maybe pour it back into the truck if not contaminated... It of course drains out from the outside (presumably the dirty side) of the filter can not the inside (threaded fitting). After letting the recovered oil settle a while I slowly tipped the bowl and see lots of fine aluminum in it and even a few larger chunks… Hopefully aluminum that was caught by the filter and removed from the circulating oil. I am presuming it’s aluminum since it’s does not respond in the slightest to a strong magnet. So where’s all that aluminum coming from? Certainly not the block… Ughhh, see pic.

So I'm wondering what the shop did wrong on the head when they rebuilt it a year ago... I'd love to believe all this metal is just left over gunk from when they machined the head and did the valve job, but I really have to imagine that was all washed off before reinstalling... Right?

Since I was under the truck anyway and it was a nice day, and since I was also going to replace the oil cooler pressure relief spring and valve, and the oil pump pressure relief spring and valve; and those parts showed up today as well, I just went ahead and installed them.

I was going to change the oil back to the good synthetic stuff, but might just go with less expensive stuff first and see if it’s still happening. This is relatively fresh oil with 6 months and 1800 miles on it.

The oil that was put in the truck by the shop that did the head was changed out with this stuff when I noticed the low pressure, I asked the shop that changed the oil at that time to examine it to see if there was any badness, but it was a drive thru joint in Fresno and about 105 degrees that day, they just said it looked fine and I doubt they really looked at it. When I change the oil tomorrow I'm going to try to drain it through a coffee filter (I'm that'll be fun) and see what it catches.

The perhaps, maybe, good news is that the oil pressure, at least according to the dash gauge is remaining around 1/3 scale at 2000 - 3000 RPM now with the engine at normal 180 degree water temp. I'll put the T back on and a mechanical gauge and see what the actual pressure is. So, did the filter or relief valves fix that? The pressure still drops quite low at idle of 800-1000 rpm. There did not seem to be anything bad about the old springs or valves that I replaced, not to say that some piece of grit wasn't hanging one of the valves up. Both springs just fell out, but the valves on both needed to be pulled out with a little magnet on a stick but took little to no force. The new springs are perhaps 0.5-1.0 mm longer than those I pulled out, hard to imagine that would make a significant difference in pressure.

What do y’all think?

I think that much debris in the oil is the babbit material from lower end bearings.

Did you pull a clean sample of the oil while draining so you could send it out for analysis?

That could be valuable for proper diagnosis.

Keep moving forward to confirm.

Unless they didn't clean out the head after machining and before installation, that debris has to be from the bottom.

Not looking promising.

 

[flintknapper]

I think that much debris in the oil is the babbit material from lower end bearings.

This was my first thought too. Rod and Crank Bearing material. Both of which would cause low oil pressure if clearances were extreme.

 

[Kernal]

Ditto all above: collect a sample of used engine oil and send it off to Blackstone Laboratories for an Engine Oil Analysis. That will tell you what metals are in the oil and may give you a bit more data about what's coming apart.

You'll also want to drop the lower oil pan and check what's sitting on the bottom.

Either way as mentioned above you may have found the culprit.

Free Test Kits | Blackstone Laboratories

Not much in life is truly free, but these kits are. All it costs you is the time it takes to fill out the form. Just one more reason to love Blackstone!

www.blackstone-labs.com

 

[Bud_Dude]

Ditto all above: collect a sample of used engine oil and send it off to Blackstone Laboratories for an Engine Oil Analysis. That will tell you what metals are in the oil and may give you a bit more data about what's coming apart.

You'll also want to drop the lower oil pan and check what's sitting on the bottom.

Either way as mentioned above you may have found the culprit.

Free Test Kits | Blackstone Laboratories

Not much in life is truly free, but these kits are. All it costs you is the time it takes to fill out the form. Just one more reason to love Blackstone!

www.blackstone-labs.com

I ordered a Blackstone oil test kit earlier today and will send some oil in once I drain it. Rather than dropping the oil pan yet, I think I'm going to use my endoscopic inspection camera to poke around and see what I can see in there.