Just a quick thread...

The other day I was driving my '93 Sport, and noticed that I lost all of my oil pressure (according to the gauge) and had a loud knocking coming from under my valve cover. At idle my engine would sound like a diesel.

From the symptoms I was seeing, I began thinking I may have a bad oil pump. This oil pump came with the '95 engine I bought/rebuilt/installed 2 years ago. When I rebuilt that 95 engine, I took apart the pump and made sure it was good, and I also took apart the lifter to make sure the O-rings and springs were good.

So yesterday I put my Jeep up on the lift, drained the oil, took the pan off, and un-bolted my pump. Turns out my pump was fine. I then took my ditributer off to check the end of the shaft. Well that checked out fine as well..

For shits, I ordered a new pump, and will be installing it tomorrow. Sucks I have to burn a vacation day to do this. My plan of action is this:

1. Install new pump
2. Take a reading off my OSU to see if I have any pressure at all (btw, anyone know if the gauge only takes a reading if it is within a certain threshold? If its not within that threshold does it report 0? )
3. Take off Valve cover to find noise - Loose rocker Arm?
4. If need be, take off valve head to get at the cylinder head to examine lifters..

Here is my question: Anyone ever run into a problem like this? Lost pressure, but Pump/Distributer shaft check out? Any suggesstions as to what else I could check?

I have heard some stories about water/moisture getting into the oil, causing it to become frothy, if the gasket on the pan is not good. Seems weird though that this would happen 2 yrs later, considering where I live we have a lot of Ice/Snow/Rain.

If I have to take apart my engine tomorrow, I will, as this is my only mode of transportation in the winter.

If I manage to solve this problem tomorrow, I will update this post..

Welp, it sucked that I had to burn a vacation day to do this work, but the Jeep lives again..

It took me about 3 hours to get the new pump in. I ended up buying a high flow one. Once the pump was in, and everything was put back together, I started her up, but was still not seeing any pressure on my console gauges.

I removed the OSU, and put a little 30psi gauge on the sender, started her up, and she pegged my gauge. I cleaned the OSU and put it back in place.

I then took the valve cover off to check the rockers out, and not of them were too loose. I was mistifed. So with the valve cover off, I started her up again, and all the rockers had good movement, but no oil was coming up through the arms. Then all of a sudden, she started squirting oil everywhere...

I have good pressure now, and she runs a lot quieter than before. Dont know if the high volume pump took a little longer to fill or what.

Just incase people are wondering, despite the Jeep being a 93, the engine has only 12,000 miles on it. I purchased this engine from a junkyard off a 95 Cherokee that had 5,000 miles on it. So I am not worried about a high flow pump on an old engine. The old engine had 215,000 miles on it before I bought/rebuilt/installed the 95 one.