some big problems.. 95 astro

so i got my sister to take my 95 chev astro to mr.lube to get the oil and all the fluids checked on thankgiving *canadian one so mid october* and all... all was going well... was getting ready to go home for christmas, then everything went bad.... lost all oil pressure on the way home from work, thing dies...

took it to the closest place that deals with fluids, they pull the sticks out, and wham, the oil is black... obviously not good... and there is no tranny fluid... i did not check the tranny fluid for the last 2 months, had made the mistake of assuming the people did it... but the oil i checked every two weeks when i filled this thing up... so any how... there was 2 liters of oil in her. but for sure the tranny was gone... so it has been in the tranny shop for 4 days now...

new tranny in, about to go pay for it, 2500 bucks for a university student... damn... and they tell me the bad news... tranny is working good... when it was cold it sounded great... when it got warm, the engine started *knocking* that is all the tranny guys told me... so here is what i am asking...

in any engine or maybe only the chev's here, with black oil, BLACK, and if there was flakes of metal, what would, or could be causing the "knocking" noise...

just want to see if anyone can shed some light on this, so i can get her fixed, or maybe just scrap her.... but what pisses me off is that i am about to pay 2500 bucks for a vehicle that i have been taking care of, and now i gotta take the damn bus home for christmas... which is forever away...

oh well.... opinions and such welcomed...

[QUOTE=scottnhalifax]im gonna say from past experiences at my shop you threw a bearing or the person who changed the oil knocked some rust in the oil fill tube.
id try and chaneg the oil again and but some good oil, mobil one in it and a good oil filter.
you may get lucky and had some old oil in the pan get loose.
start and go from there

You mentioned you lost all oil pressure. That would be engine oil pressure. The oil pressure switch that sends the signal to the gage is also tied into the fuel pump. The PCM shuts the fuel pump down when oil pressure drops below a certain threshold. ?That's why it shut down.
With the oil black and metal flakes in it,the bad news is that you probably toasted the bearings in your engine. If you didn't see a bunch of oil spewed out of the engine anywhere, the oil pump must have given up the ghost.
problems seem to come in pairs with the 'stros, but I've never heard of a pair this bad. My condolences.