1988 Astro Van

While driving on interstate, getting off exit ramp, all ok until stopping. All of a sudden, engine began to slowly cut out, looking down at guages, oil pressure guage was showing zero. Engine stopped and would not crank or turn over at all. Later told by someone that engine was locked up. If this is so? how? Maybe oil pump failure? How can I get the engine running again? :confused:

well same thing happened to me, and i ended up rebuilding the engine, sorry for that new, and yes they are notorious for weak oil pumps going through tht right now, anyways, normally you should have heard a clunking noise, a low end noise, they would tell ya a few things, one a crankshaft bearing is going and if you run it long enough either the crankshaft gets a flat spot on it or one of the connectin rod to the piston is bad, also a way to check this is to disconnect one sparkplug at a time and start the engine to see if the clunking goes away, that will tell you which cylinder is bad, also it could be a push rod, again knowing which cylinder is bad reduces the number of rods to push out, i have found the haynes manual to be very helpfull in telling me how to take pushrods oout, also drop the oil pan and look at the bearings, is they are tore up or shavings in the oil pan thats not good, and when you take the oil pan off you have to take the inspection cover off the flywheel first, not fun gotta sorta push it up and over and out, then the pan has a special gasket on the outside you'll see it, its alot of hassle but be prepared to dish out 500 to 1200 on having a rebuild put in or rebuilding it, if the crank has a flat lobe pull the engine, sorry but if it froze up good chance a connecting rod has gone and the piston is twisted in the cylinder, check junkyards first or perhaps you have agood friend who will do the work at a decent price, i paid 1200 for a rebuild, used block with 89k and bored it out .040 and put new crank,cam,pistons,rings, oil pump, everything else caame off the old one, and be carefull you probally have a throttle body fuel injector, you cant use a vortek, its straight fuel injector and the intakes wont match, well good luck

There was a short screeching sound just before it stopped.screeching