Well me and the son looked at this again together.
I dont think *I* see metal....some very very fine particulates maybe? Dont seem to be magnetic. Aluminum? But EXTREMELY fine....and I am not convinced that stuff wasnt in the pan already.
We pulled the relief valve and used crocus cloth on the "piston" ...no major scoring or corrosion.....used a bore scope to peak at the hole a bit.....tough to see but to me it looks fine in there......
Put it together and put the oil pressure gauge on it....ZERO...NADA ZILCH. None at cranking , running at high idle or low.
Not even any oil in the hose/fitting of the gauge......when you disassemble it all again oil DOES drip out a drop every minute or so........but clearly we have no oil flow.
The oil level is overfilled by about a quart I would say.......above the "full mark" by the same distance as between the "fill" and "full" marks.....which is weird because he put in 5 quarts just like the book says. One quart extra wouldnt cause the pump to fail would it?
So now we are down to either a bad pump, bad gear on the pump or cam, or clogged pickup/pickup sucking air. None of those jobs are fun.
That damn pump hangs off the side the way it does and looks like it would come out but I know it wont without lifting the engine....
We had done motor mounts a couple months back and had jacked the engine up from the bottom to do that,...... But not sure I can see doing THAT to change the oil pump......seems like the jack would block access. We didnt have to disconnect anything when we did that as far as rad hoses, exhaust etc.....I assume we would have to disconnect all that to get the engine to lift high enough to clear the pump?
Engine hoist I guess? Even then the legs will be under the front of the car.....
And removing the pan looks like a royal PITA........center link, exhaust has to come out, probably STILL have to lift the motor, right?
So what would you all do at this juncture?
