Me not smart for using double negative in topic title.

Anyway.

Okay here is a schematic of the situation.
96 civic with b16 swap, hit by mini van in front, only damage appeared to be damage to valve cover and broken cam gear on motor.

I removed the head, evertyhing appeared to be in order, replaced entire head set, everything installed correctly, dowel pins, pressure orifice in correctly, head gasket on straight, etc.

Went to start motor, once it cranked, oil pressure light was on.

Turned car off.

Took cams out, sho nuff, oil pressure orifice in the #3 cam cap had fell out, replaced with spare with good O ring. Reassembled, started car, pressure light on again.

Haven't messed with the car since.

It may have ran 30-40 seconds total like this, i'm afraid to test it more for fear bearings will start spinning.

What would you do, the oil pump was replaced about 20k ago on that motor, but it was in a totally different car, and the car was hit, etc.

Just wondering if anyone else has any bright ideas, the oil is definetly not getting to the head

 

I suck at this stuff and this will probably sound like a newbie answer but:

Maybe try flushing the lines if possible? I know this happened with my coolant once.

Maybe make sure all the lines are connected correctly...

Where is all the smart people?

good luck

edit: ^ ^ ^ ^


[Modified by Si.Hatch.92, 9:20 PM 3/15/2003]

 

Oil runs only through aluminum passages in the motor, nice guess though, i wish it were so easy.

 

drop your pan and check your bearings. if #1 looks worse then the rest, probably your pump went out

 

I had this same thing happen after my car sat up a while. I dropped the oil pan and the screen on the oil pickup tube was totally clogged with all kinds of gunk and sludge. I remove the screen and cleaned the screen and tube and now it is fine. Otherwise sounds like you may have a bad oil pump.

There are only a few things it could be and these are the easiers and most probable so I would start here.

Jon Black

 

I was going to say that the oil pump gear is kind of brittle.

Have you checked for the oil restrictor orifice yet? Is it still intact?

...and the sump screen/pick-up is also a good thing to check too like the other guy mentioned.

 

Thanks, i was pretty certain I was going to have to drop the pan.

We have a brand new oil pump around just chillin, so it's no problem, just really not fun.

 

a friend of mine also had the same problem with a b-16. and we tried everything we could to fiw the prob. but alas,we just ended up rebuilding it for that and other reasons and now its fine and get plenty of oil. but i would try the other reccomendations before tearing it apart.

 

yeah man, just re-build the entire engine. (j/k i think he had an oil pump issue) anyways, i think tom's right in thinking that the pump gear is pretty brittle. let prodrive handle that one. also, i've seen many pickup screens clogged, but this was in engines full of sludge, and you would be able to tell that from first peek inside the valve cover. i don't know. we discussed this on the phone. have you tried what i suggested about the oil pressure plug on the head(at the vtec solenoid)? pull it and crank it? see if oil comes out. I'll figure this out for you the best i can. later
Shawn


[Modified by 22lbGS-R, 11:23 PM 3/16/2003]

 

ttt

 

Okay, we put some more logic behind this. The car has actually left the shady-tree to go to another swap, but here is my idea.

Oil flows through the block in this order.

pickup
pump
filter
pressure switch
head

It is clear that oil is not getting to the head. The head gasket is on correctly. All orifices in the valvetrain are present.

After removing the oil pump, it was clear that it was intact, infact it was almost perfect. Oil poured out of the block where it was supposed to be pumping in.

So this leaves the next point of failure to be... The oil filter, this is my new lean since this was also the only part that was changed since the last time this motor ran .

Unfortunatly, the motor is locked up in a shop that I cannot get into right now, but monday we will find out.

Couple different things could have happened, could just be a bad filter, piece of plastic stuck on it or something, several possible things, just needs to be checked out.

Anybody got any other ideas?

 

maybe theres not enough oil gettin to the head and the problem could still be with the pump, so the pressure light would still come on.

 

Update:

I spoke to some honda-technicians yesterday, there is actually a notice that has been posted saying that if you open an OEM honda filter by poking a hole through the center, (as I do every time, oops) the plastic can get stuck in the filter and restrict oil pressure.

I'm getting a good feeling about this.

-Brian

 

Status again:

The oil pump replaced, oil filter inspected, appears to have not been getting hardly any oil at all.

Started motor up, oil pressure light went away, faulty pump obviously.

But now I know a hell of a lot more about oil pumps.

-Brian

 

Thought you said the pump looked good? *shakes head*

Since the screen was mentioned, someone want to tell me where exactly this is? My cars been abused of oil changes from the previous owner and I would really like to clean this out when I flush the motor.

 

It looked good, but it was clearly not working properly, or perhaps it wasn't given sufficient time to prime.

The screen is in the oil pickup, which is in the oil pan.

-Brian