How long car a motor be on with no oil supply befor it goes bad?

J

jstang209

20+ Year Stangneter :roc</strong><span class=
Jun 3, 2004
640
2
18
Stockton 209
#1
For those of you who dont know my oil pump DS broke while i was driving.. I didnt no it was the DS or i woulda went straight home but all i heard was ticking so i drove it to the shop. The motor is a reman only about 3k miles on it or so.. So all the bearings and what not are new. So should i be ok? i drove it about 8 miles.:scratch:
 
#6
shop teacher told me that it only takes a couple seconds without oil pressure to do damage.

might run ok for now, but the life of those bearings is probably less that 1/2 of what they should have been
 
#9
when i pulled the oil pan everything was all oily due to way it was towed but i didnt notice anything wrong but then again i didnt really know what type of things to look for ya know, i would post up some pics but i already put that pan back on, the motor is stilll out the car tho. Im jus waitin for my new clutch to come
 
#12
I know of one Windstar that was cranked and run for a minute w/o oil. It was then filled, driven for a month, sold, and is still driving around, probably with 200k on the motor. I had an oil pump driveshaft break once and ran it for a couple minutes to figure out what broke.

Fixed it, put new rod bearings in it, kept the mains, and drove the daylights out of it for 3 years.

If it is still running, after 8 miles, I would at least check the bearings, and most likely, if the crank is ok, install all new crank and rod bearings.
 
#13
Change the oil, put a powerful magnet in the old used oil and see how much metal you come up with. If it's not much then you should be ok.

Even better way to find out: replace the oilpump driveshaft, fill her up and run the engine. If it was badly damaged, you will know right away via ticking sounds and rough running with vibration. If it runs well, drive it for a hundred miles or so and see how much oil you burned. If it's not much then you're good to go. If you burn a lot then you smoked the rings.

On the other hand....

The oilpump was spinning when it snapped so those surfaces were not bone dry. They were "prelubed". Chances are you can get away with just an oilpump driveshaft but you might have reduced the bearing life a bit. Chances are you didnt whale on it after it started making noises either so it was a low RPM oil-less session.

See what your oil looks like.

Good luck!

Pete
 
#15
crazypete said:
..."prelubed".
Pete
Click to expand...

This guy and "lube", yeesh!!! :p

I know of a Ranger that was cranked for a minute or so without oil, and no problems in years of use... but 8 miles!!! Dude you'd be better off taking next Saturday and tearing that thing down to check it :nice: I'm so anal with mine that's what I'd do. Also +1 for the Magnet idea :nice:
 
#16
HoodStrype said:
This guy and "lube", yeesh!!! :p

I know of a Ranger that was cranked for a minute or so without oil, and no problems in years of use... but 8 miles!!! Dude you'd be better off taking next Saturday and tearing that thing down to check it :nice: I'm so anal with mine that's what I'd do. Also +1 for the Magnet idea :nice:
Click to expand...

Well......if he replaced the pump driveshaft (and changed the oil) then he cant do any further damage to the motor...right? It will be lubricated at that point. With oil flowing, the "running conditon" is a good snapshot indicator of what the inside of the engine looks like without having to take it apart. The oil psi will tell if any of the bearings spun.

Just trying to save the guy a teardown.

You can extract the driveshaft remains from the top of the engine with the distributor out and a long magnetic pickup to lift it out and drop it into the front sump where you can pull it through the drain plug hole. You'll lose the washer that holds the shaft into the pump but you can retrieve it through the drainplug hole using your magnetic pickup. Then rtv the replacement shaft into the distributor base and lower the dizzy in spinnning it so the shaft engages.

If you fail, you just end up where you sarted: having to drop the oilpan anyway.
 
#18
You need to focus on WHY the pump DS broke in the first place. I would say that chances are your pump locked up, meaning you should change the pump itself. The DS isn't going to break for no reason, typically the pump locks up, the dizzy continue to spin with the cam, twisting the DS until it breaks.

I would pull the engine, flip it and check the pump for scars or metal in the pump...while you are there pull off your caps and check the bearings. Keep in mind that the cam bearings are actually going to see damage first. So if the crank or rod bearings are showing copper, then you probably need cam bearings as well.
 
#19
Same thing happened to my lx. I had to drive it for about4 miles and she started tickin. The guy said besides the oil pump bieng shot she was ok. After she was fixed she seemed to run the same. I sold the car to someone at work, (he knew about the pump), and hasnt had any problems
 
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