Zero oil pressure
 

Drove home lastnight, every thing was just peachy. I started it this morning and backed out of the garage... thats when when i noticed no oil pressure. I shut it off and got my trailer, brought it to my shop. My question is this something common with miatas. Just to make sure it wasnt a bad sender i pulled the supply line off the turbo and cranked it over, no oil. Think I can get away with an oil pump, or just figure on rebuilding my engine. It probably ran for a little over a minute with no oil pressure, but no knocks yet.

Hmm. You could start by checking the oil level. See if it's low. Did you happen to drive the dog shit out of it yesterday? Hit the rev limiter while spinning your tires? Do you have a harmonic balancer on the crankshaft or do you have an underdrive pulley?

If you only ran it for a minute from a cold start at idle and then backed out of your driveway and noticed no oil pressure, it may be ok if that's the only time it ran with no oil pressure. But it's still not good. You need to find out what happened.

Didnt run it hard this particular time on the way home, but most of the time, yes i run the dog shit out of it. Oil is full. It still has the balancer on it. I will pull the pan tonight and see why or what.

well i got the pan off (and if anybody is wondering the pan will come off in the car) and took the oilpump off to find the pressure relief stuck open. Its hard to see in pic but the piston is scared on one side real bad and i actually had to beat it out of housing. Any ideas on why or how how to keep it from happening again?
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Damn, you know I actually meant to say this in my first post and forgot. 97's had a thing about sticking relief valves. :) It's a known issue. Just get a new pump and she'll be good to go.

And interesting, everyone swears you can't pull the pan without pulling the engine, or at least unbolting it and lifting it. Hmm....

EDIT: ah, you have a 95. Not sure if 95's were affected but anyways, new pump fixes it. Some stick for no reason. That or you had a piece of debris get through the screen on the oil pickup tube and it found it's way between the side of the bleed valve and created a bur. The valve opens the most at cold start, so that's usually when they'll stick.

Please tell us more about how the pan will come off in the car. :o Did you jack the motor off the mounts?

^Interested in how to remove oil pan w/ out pulling motor as well.

I tied the engine to the strut brace and unbolted the k-frame. Took about an hour from complete car to holding oil pump in my hand.
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ingenious. how much room did you have below the car to do that?

And not the first ingenious thing we've seen from him. Would removing the K frame ruin the car's alignment though? I'm not too farmiliar with the underlings of my car.

I had a couple of feet under the car. It shouldn't mess with alighnment, the a-arms and the rack is all attached to to the k-frame and i didnt have to loosen any of that.

how much did you lower the subframe? so much that you had to remove the brake lines?

I lowered it about 4". The brake lines never move as the struts hold the tire and wheel in the same place, just the k-frame drops down.

I got it back together and the engine sounds fine. As for doing the pan on the ground, it came out very easy but going back in was a bitch. It took three people trying to stuff under my car holding and prying shit to get the pan shoved back up in there, maybe better than pulling engine but still sucked.

Key bit of info there. I've done that... at 2am...for a bad oil pump fresh from the box. But I dropped the entire subframe. Unbolted the steering shaft at the last U joint, brake lines and upper shock/spring mounts. Way easier than pulling the engine IF you know the problem is in there.

Me too. Way quicker than unhooking everything and pulling the motor. Got to be carefull though, if the mounting studs are rusty, they're real easy to strip. Must use lots of penatrating oil.

oh yeah baby...lube it up good!

Man you got pretty lucky w/o having any issues with the car. Good call on the k-frame.