Low oil pressure solved , dropped the pan

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make a long story short got a used es300 for my newbie driving daughter with 140 k . I'm going thru the car myself and replaced battery, sway bar link, belts, power steering hose and rebuilt power steering pump. Since the engine is a known sludger I put in M1 5/30 high mileage to slowly clean motor. Engine runs like swiss watch. I drive it for a couple weeks to make sure everything is ok. I notice after I exit the highway at idle at stoplight. Oil pressure light pops on for a second. I put in neutral and it goes out. I go home and remove oil sender. Sender is new and had been recently changed. I change sender again as I didn't have a 90 fitting for my pressure tester. Light still flickers after a highway run at idle. So I think I found out why car was sold. Knowing this engine was a known sludger I drain oil and drop pan. There is some varnish only. I remove oil pump and inspect it. the screen is 75% clogged. I start cleaning the screen and realize it is not sludge, I am removing rubber. i then find a circular piece of rubber on the screen. It is the darn pvc grommet. Someone replaced pvc and grommet. Old grommet must have fallen into valve cover where it melted into the oil and congealed on the oil pump screen. put it all back together and drove it for a week and no issues. So if you have low oil pressure always drop the pan and check the pick up screen for debris and the oil pump bolts are tight. The old 740's were known to loosen there pump bolts and cause low oil pressure grenading engines.
 
Don't you wonder how many BITOGers would have blamed the oil filter for the problem if you had posted about it before finding the answer? Or claimed that the issue was caused by oil that was too thin?
 
Great post, thanks! Love to hear about logical diagnosis of engine problems - or any problem for that matter
smile.gif
 
I almost lost a PVC grommet into that 1mzfe engine in my car. It would have been a royal pain to get it out had it fallen under the rear valve cover. I was holding on to it for dear life for a good while with a needle nose and finally pulled it out.
 
This DIY story is a BITOG classic. Good story and ending. Kind of message that keeps us going in the garage on our own appliances. Thanks for the post.
 
There is a baffle system on the underside of the valve cover for those engines, even if you drop the PCV grommet into the cover it won't drop into the head. I really can't see how the grommet would "liquefy" in oil either, from what I've seen the polymer gets more rigid rather than softer.

I dropped a grommet once when changing the PCV valve on my 1MZ-FE (before upgrading that cover to the new design) and I was able to fish it out of the baffle underneath. It wasn't particularly easy but it didn't drop into the cams.

Here is a thread I made a while back when I replaced that cover with a new one. Note that there isn't a "free drop" from the PCV hole through the cover:

https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/3397521/1MZ-FE_Rear_Valve_Cover_Change
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Originally Posted By: Recalculating
This DIY story is a BITOG classic. Good story and ending. Kind of message that keeps us going in the garage on our own appliances. Thanks for the post.


^^ +1 Love a happy ending. Always check the simple stuff. Thanks again.
 
Originally Posted By: groomerz
make a long story short got a used es300 for my newbie driving daughter with 140 k . I'm going thru the car myself and replaced battery, sway bar link, belts, power steering hose and rebuilt power steering pump. Since the engine is a known sludger I put in M1 5/30 high mileage to slowly clean motor. Engine runs like swiss watch. I drive it for a couple weeks to make sure everything is ok. I notice after I exit the highway at idle at stoplight. Oil pressure light pops on for a second. I put in neutral and it goes out. I go home and remove oil sender. Sender is new and had been recently changed. I change sender again as I didn't have a 90 fitting for my pressure tester. Light still flickers after a highway run at idle. So I think I found out why car was sold. Knowing this engine was a known sludger I drain oil and drop pan. There is some varnish only. I remove oil pump and inspect it. the screen is 75% clogged. I start cleaning the screen and realize it is not sludge, I am removing rubber. i then find a circular piece of rubber on the screen. It is the darn pvc grommet. Someone replaced pvc and grommet. Old grommet must have fallen into valve cover where it melted into the oil and congealed on the oil pump screen. put it all back together and drove it for a week and no issues. So if you have low oil pressure always drop the pan and check the pick up screen for debris and the oil pump bolts are tight. The old 740's were known to loosen there pump bolts and cause low oil pressure grenading engines.


You actually removed the oil pump? That isn't easy on a 1MZ-FE.
 
I have a 2000 es300. Its been in the family since new and I know that pcv grommet is original. I'll have to check and see if its old and hard and needs replacing.
 
Originally Posted By: Donald
Better than finding chunks of piston skirt like you might find in a Jeep 4.0 engine!


That's what I expected on mine.

Instead I found oil pump bolts and a loose oil pump.

Once the oil pump was put back on , the engine stopped knocking and I had good oil pressure again!
 
Ages ago I had a 1991 Ford Ranger that was taking for ever to build up oil pressure when cold. I started with the obvious, but nothing helped. Then I was going to change the oil pump. When I dropped the pan I found the pick up screen almost totally clogged by bits and pieces of either rubber or silicone, whatever the pan gasket was made out of (I forgot since it has been so long). The gasket dried up and cracked and it ended up in the oil pan, interestingly enough, oil wasn't leaking anywhere. I tried to clean the screen, but I wasn't too successful, so I ended up replacing the pick up tube. I got rid of that truck many many years after this and as of last year it was still on the road.
 
Sorry I meant to say oil pick up tube and not oil pump. As far as baffle under valve cover that would prevent grommet from getting down to pan maybe it wasn't grommet but it was something that clogged screen and if you have low oil pressure issues drop the pan and inspect the pick up.
 
I had flakes of varnish and bits of gasket in my sump.

Some of them were stuck to the pickup strainer. Probably not enough to compromise oil pressure, BUT when the sump was full of oil more might have been carried there by the oil flow, but dropped off when the oil was drained.
 
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