thos cohen (thos@suite.sw.oz.au) writes:
> If you had really grungy oil, how much damage could it do to the pump?
> (The oil in the sump looked more like molasses).
That's a very good question. [Ed. Note: He has no idea.] The typical oil
pump as I understand it is basically just two gears meshing together. The
two kinds of failure I've been told about are (1) the pickup screen getting
clogged, which is obviously a repairable problem if detected before the engine
goes, and (2) the gears getting so worn that there's a lot of slop and space
between them, allowing the oil to squish around instead of move forward. I've
retained the old pump that came out of our Pontiac last week and plan to take
it apart when I get some time and see what's gone wrong. I gave it a cursory
look-see last weekend and it seemed all right: the screen was clean and clear,
and the input shaft turned easily with finger force, so I don't know why it
went. I could hear the gears turning inside it. It does have some important-
looking fittings bolted in, maybe a pressure-relief valve or something like
that, so I will take it to pieces and see what I find. Sloppy gear mesh is
my guess. This might be caused by MAJOR grit and debris in the oil, but I
thought my 1500-mile oil and filter changes would have prevented that.
Andrew C. Green
Datalogics, Inc. Internet: acg@dlogics.com
441 W. Huron UUCP: ..!uunet!dlogics!acg
Chicago, IL 60610 FAX: (312) 266-4473
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