I have an oil leak and when it gets so low that my oil pressure gauge goes all the way to low, the motor squeals like the belt is wet or something. extremely loud, and a bad attention grabber. i hate it. i am planning on doing my rear main seal soon, an heads up? but after that and my oil gauge will stay at normal and it wont squeal but until then, WHY is it squealing and how do i make it stop? Thanks for any help

 

I am really confused by what you are saying but I think I figured out one thing: yer screwed.
Well, it sounds at least your motor is. Try to write intelligable sentences OK?

 

Er, try keeping oil in it.

 

-when the oil pressure gauge goes down - it squeals
-when the oil pressure gauge is normal - it doesnt squeal
-obviously the oil gauge goes down because the oil level is decreased, but when the oil level is normal, the gauge is normal. (thats pretty much all common sense.)
-When i do the rear main seal, (the thing that is leaking oil) the pressure will then stay normal, so the squealing will cease, but until then, is there any other explanation to why it squeals.

-the squealing is very similar to the sound the belt makes when it is wet.

I apologize for the "inadequate sentences" )

 

A belated 'welcome to the site'!

No idea why the squeal - but agreed with previous post-ers - keep the oil between Add and Full.

 

I have an explanation... well more of a testament of how tough that 302 is. I think the sqeal is the enternal parts of the motor begging for oil. Usually once you hear it it don't stop.

 

In F150 language, it's saying "Give me oil now dammit!". The gauge isn't oil level, it's pressure. You should not be allowing the oil level to drop so much that the gauge loses pressure.

 

Just Call Me Sean,

I put a quart in when it said it was at "Add A Quart". after driving about three miles i stopped at another gas station to check the level. waited a few minutes for the oil to fall into the pan and it said it was still in between the hash marks. but the pressure, when the RPMS would go to 1200 and less, would drop all the way and check engine light would come on. But when RPMS go above 1200-ish the pressure gauge reads normal and the squeal goes away.

ALL OF THIS IS HAPPENING EVEN WITH PLENTY OF OIL IN IT. hence all of my confusion. if my oil was a quart low, i could understand why the pressure would fall so far, but even if it has plenty, on occasion it falls to zero when RPMS are low. again, if RPMS are at 1200 or more -pressure is normal and no squeal.

Thanks for all of the help guys

 

Ok, that's a much better description of what's happening. I think the squeal and low pressure are two separate things. The squeal probably is the belt, possible bad tensioner. The oil pressure sending units are known to go bad so you can try a new one and see if the pressure is still low. I changed mine and the gauge read in the normal for a while and eventually started showing low again. You can hook up a mechanical oil pressure gauge to get an actual pressure reading to see if the oil pump is dying.

 

Ahhh - more info always helps. So difficult to troubleshoot things without actually being there.

Two thoughts - given the age of the vehicle - perhaps a clogged oil pickup screen? Another is an informal observation - using a better quality oil filter seems to help - perhaps due to a lower pressure drop across the filter.