matts6foot8

This is what I found under my vavlve covers this weekend. I decided to do this because when I start my truck now white smoke comes out for only a minute then clears up. So I decided to replace my valve seals and this is what I found. GUNK! The drivers side wasnt as bad but definitely had traces of harder build up. Mabey this was causing the low pressure.

Jbrew

Wow that's a nasty suprise ^^

Here's a few proper working idiot gauges at start, -

A 01 5.4L 54,000 miles, -

https://plus.google.com/photos/10028...93822927083789

A 98 5.4L 309,000 miles, -

https://plus.google.com/photos/10028...93822927083789

matts6foot8

Turns out I still get a little low on oil pressure. Ive done all I can im throwing in the towel and just gonna run it till she wont run know more. Who knows I might get another 150 thousand out of it.

jstockert

Matt put a mechanical oil pressure gauge on your truck. Mine was bouncing too and oil light would come on in gear at red light. Replaced my sender and added a tee for mechanical gauge. No more bouncing and great pressure.

matts6foot8

I did awhile back. It still reads low in gear while warm.

johnstrickland

Just wanted to say thank you for saving my truck I bought it used and whoever had it before me didn't treat it right so I am slowly trying to save it

w0lvez

The FILTER SCREEN inside the oil pan is surely restricting oil flow going to the pump.

Jbrew

Right. -That'll do it in, if let go. That's the pic-up tube and screen btw. Or oil sump.

Mark J House

The oil pressure gauge and sensors, are actually idiot lights! Once the pressure gets down to 10-12psi, the gauge just switches to show no oil pressure. Once you get above that pressure the gauge pops on like an idiot light. If you rev it up to 3,000RPM, the motor will be producing 60psi or so, but the gauge will only show medium.
Add a good electric-variable oil pressure gauge and you'll see.
If you have the 4.2 V6, it has a bad habit of leaking coolant into the oil, and slugging up the engine. Once the motor gets enough of this slug built up it can clog your oil pick up screen. This is why the oil pressured is eratic. You can give the engine a good flush, but the coagulated oil will stay in the super fine screen. Eventually you'll start getting lifter pump down from clogged lifters and it will start ticking. Then you have to replace the lower intake manifold gasket with new Felpro aluminum gasket, DO NOT USE The plastic Victor Rienz (Sp?)! THEY WILL LEAK AGAIN.
You'll also have to raise the engine, or pull it to get the pan off and replace the screen.
Scan below and you'll see lots of guys with this same problem, it's common on the 4.2V6. If you have a V8... Never mind. 8-)

aznxstazy

sorry, haven't gotten on here much.

But I think your problem is the clearance in the crank and bearings. That bearing that you pulled looks VERY worn to me. Even or not, it was pretty worn. It would have been better to have token the crank to a machine shop and see if they were still within spec before placing new bearings in.

New bearings should look silver no copper showing. The copper is under the silver coating. When it digs into the copper it means it was lacking oil at some point. for how long who really knows. Even with that little bit of no oil. It could have rubbed your crank every so slightly where you won't be able to tell with the eye. Only with professional machinist tools could you tell. That or plasti gauge the bearings before reinstalling everything.

What oil are you running now in the engine?

Try maybe running heavier weight oil. Maybe some Shell Rotella t6. See if that does anything to the oil pressure. It raised mine in my honda SLIGHTLY at idle.

Also heard you should run motocraft oil filters only... never a fram... There a TSB about it somewhere.