Ok so before I start, my wife now knows what not to do when your oil light goes on.....

A few days ago my wife leaves the house and shortly after she notices the oil pressure gauge is intermittently flashing. She continues on to her destination. When she heads home she now notices the oil light is constantly lit but continues to drive on thinking she will let me know about it when she gets home and everything will be ok because typically it just means low oil (put oil in soon!)

About 10 miles down the road the engine starts to tick and then knock loudly. Engines dies less than 30 seconds later. She has to pull to the shoulder and we get the car towed.

Get the car home and its locked, can't turn the engine with the starter or a socket or breaker bar on the harmonic balancer. Use Marvel Mystery Oil on the cams in addition to a full oil change with Marvel's and it broke free when I rocked the car back and forth in second gear. Starter now easily turns the engine over (without the plugs.)

Let it sit for a few days with Marvel's and occasionally turning it over without starting it and seems like there are no issues. Do another oil change and re-gap the plugs and car starts like a champ... except it starts knocking pretty severely whenever the RPMs drop too low or go too high. When it knocks the Oil Pressure gauge starts flashing or coming on constant.

Before I go any further I wanted to get the opinion of others --- I think it's a oil intake issue/blockage issue I would normally associate with an oil pump or oil pump screen but when I look up oil pump replacement parts I am not finding anything beside the oil intake assembly. I plan to take the oil pan off and clean the intake out but before I do that does anyone have any suggestions for what I should look for or do while I am doing that?

Any suggestions and input would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

two words, new motor.

 

That's what I thought before starting the process but there is no scouring on the cams and the knocking is definitely happening with the valve train. Crank is good. The Oil Pressure gauge comes on immediately when the knocking starts and it is only coming from the top half of the engine (not the crank.) Engine is OK, something with the oil flow to the head is not.

 

...maybe the oil pump itself is failing. Either way the engine is compromised...

 

Oil pump is my prime suspect, if I'm lucky only the intake is at fault. I plan to take the oil pan off next weekend.