Last summer, I was driving from Texas to California and about 60 miles outside Tucson my F150 decided it didn't want to finish the trip. It's an '04 Lariat with 127K miles on it.

The previous evening, about 30 miles east of El Paso the check engine light had come on so I pulled over to check things out. The engine was running rough at idle but seemed OK at highway speeds. I took it easy and drove on into El Paso and found a Pep Boys that was still open and had them run the codes. Turns out it was the Camshaft Position Sensor on Bank A, but their tech that could change it had already left. So I spent the night in El Paso and had them replace it in the morning.

I drove it around a bit before hitting the road again, and all seemed well. I continued my trip, then about 300 miles later I was cruising along and all of a sudden the Check Engine light came on again, and as it did I noticed that the oil pressure gauge dropped to zero momentarily, came back up to normal range for a moment, then dropped back to zero and stayed there. I was on a downhill at the time so I took my foot off the gas, shifted to neutral, cut the enginer, and coasted to the bottom of the hill. A state trooper was sitting in the median there, and came over to assist. I checked the oil, and the level was fine so I started the engine again and it ran but was knocking very loudly, so I shut it back off.

Got the trooper to call a tow truck in the next town to haul me to the very small Ford dealership there. One mechanic, one parts guy, one lot porter, and one salesman was their entire staff. Their mechanic kid checked the oil and confirmed that it was full as I had told them. He started it up a couple of times, looked around the engine compartment for about 5 minutes, and declared that I had a spun crank and needed either an engine rebuild or a remanufactured engine, either of which would end up costing me about the same in the end.

The sales manager then proceeded to try to sell me a car and said he could maybe give me $1500 trade-in on mine. Not having been born the day before, I could see what was going on.

I ended up renting a car to finish my trip, and later had the truck towed into Tucson to a storage lot. At the time I was living in Texas but have since relocated to Seattle and have had no chance to think about this much or get it transported to where I can have it checked out by someone I trust.

Before I left the dealership, the lot porter was talking to me off to the side and he suggested I have someone pull the oil pan and check, maybe it was just a main bearing on one of the pistons and I could get that fixed easier as long as the piston didn't score the cylinder or damage the head or valves. The other day, I was talking to a friend here and he suggested that it might be just that the oil pump had failed.

Any thoughts on whether either of these might be likely given that the oil pressure dropped to zero although the oil levels are fine?

I'm trying to decide if I should try to sell it as is down there, or get it transported up here.

Thanks for any thoughts you may have...

 

Could be oil pump, or more likely the oil pick-up tube has become obstructed.