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Date:         Fri, 12 May 1995 13:39:33 -0700 (PDT)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Kenneth Mackenzie <kmackenz@u.washington.edu>
Subject:      oil pressure problem, '86 

I was driving the van about 1 week ago down a major arterial, and the oil pressure light/buzzer came on. The van has about 99K miles. The short story is: oil level is ok and the engine is not overheated. I heard no knocking ( although now all I remember is the buzzer). I parked the van asap and let it sit until I could setup a mechanic to look at it.

There are warranty issues here, and the van was seen by 3 mechanics for correct diagnosis and repair. BTW, the light did come on when I took it to M1 but not to either of the other mechanics.

M1 said " Oil switch 0.45 bar goes out. ok. 1.8 bar stays open after the engine is warmed up. Changed 1.8 bar switch. light still on. measured oil pressure. Low! warm engine 0.45 -0.54 bar. It supposed to be over 2.0 bar". M2 ran his own tests and said "oil pressure too low at 3000 rpm. 2.0 bar instead of 2.2 bar." M1 and M2 said either the oil pump was bad, or something more serious and expensive was wrong w/ the engine. They said there was nothing wrong w/ the sensor. M3 ran his own tests and said: "55 psi cold idle; 72 psi Acc[?]; warm to hot: 7-8 psi (1/2 bar) idle, 30 psi at 3000 rpm, 40 psi at 4000 rpm". M3 felt there was no need to replace the oil pump or get into the engine; he could not reproduce the problem. He called a local dealer (Campbell-Nelson in Edmonds, WA) who said they had torn down engines after having this complaint and found nothing wrong. He recommended only that I change to a heavier wt oil, which I will do. The oil in it now is 10-30, and I will use 20-50, Castrol.

In your collective wisdom (1) why did this happen? (2) What, if anything, is wrong w/ the oil pump or engine or sensor? (3) What do I need to do now?


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