Mortywrx

Ive been messing with the car today put the oil temp sender in and a reconditioned p/s pump. ive not messed with any thing else, Before I started the car up I checked the oil to see if it was alright? there was no reading on the dipstick? so I put a litre of oil in from an unopen bottle. wen I started the car up it sounded fine for about 5 minutes then I got a loud knocking noise and the oil light keeps coming on????? can some one tell me if its just the oil that is very low? or if its some thing worse.

By the way its a MY95 turbo UK

Darren

Dark Blue Mark

Have you got a reading on the distick now? Is there any oil coming out where you put the sender? Presume you used the sump so it wouldn't be leaking air.

Just checking you haven't lost presssure. Guess the ECU would pick up on a low pressure.

MB

Mortywrx

There is still no reading on the dipstick, and ive put the sender above cylinder no.3 and I put PTfe tape round the thread so there was no leaking.

Darren

Dark Blue Mark

I wouldnt run it until you have an oil level, or it will clank a bit! The oil warning lights more worrying, dont know whether thats pressure or temp, assume its pressure.

MB

Mortywrx

would the oil light come on when the oil is low?

Darren

David_Wallis

no.. the light is oil pressure iirc..

David

MGJohn

Mortywrx WROTE:

>would the oil light come on when the oil is low? <

Yes it could under certain circumstances such as TOO low oil level....

Nowadays, on most cars it's a LOW OIL PRESSURE light although some cars also have a low oil LEVEL warning light too. Sometime ago, IIRC, my digital dash MG Montego had warning lights for both oil levels and pressure and they worked. Both audio and visual warnings. Useful for the less careful owners who dont check their visual instruments very often...

Mortywrxalso wrote:

>>wen I started the car up it sounded fine for about 5 minutes then I got a loud knocking noise and the oil light keeps coming on????? << ....

Five minutes without sufficient oil pressure could be bad news .... hope not. If the oil level on your car was so low that the oil pump could not scavenge oil from the sump reservoir, then possibly air will be sucked up instead causing air locks and thus loss of oil pressure. Don't know about Jap turbo cars but with my Brit turbos it's an oil PRESSURE warning light. If this is what's happened, then possibly your oil pump would need to be primed. Why was the oil level so low that there was no reading on the dip stick in the first place? On some cars simply topping up the oil level to normal is sufficient to prime a pump. Many other cars need to have the oil pumps primed. Dont know what Subarus need.

Following some cylinder head work, I recently over zealously flushed and replaced the oil in one of my cars so much so that I had no oil pressure. Oil pump full of air and no way would that low pressure warning light go out when I started it up for the first time afterwards. How to prime my oil pump..... what I did was invert a clean, empty 6 pint plastic milk bottle over the engine's oil filler tube also used dowels to plug off various engine breathers. Started engine and watched for 2-3 seconds to confirm again that that oil light still did not go out. Then, two quick strides later I was at the front of the car and quickly clapped both hands strongly either side of the plastic milk bottle. This sent a strong pulse of air down into the engine's sump. The idea being to force the fresh 10-40 expensive stuff up the scavenger tube thus priming the oil pump. I stepped back to the car and glanced at the instrument panel ...... THE LOW OIL PRESSURE warning light was no longer illuminated and the good old O series Turbo was idling like a sewing machine. SORTED! Not saying this is your problem but, it certainly worked for me.

Before doing this, I'd posted the query on several web sites and most recommendations were along the lines of partial engine strips to prime the oil pump by those faced with the same problem in the past. My method took a few seconds and no expense and I didn't even get my hands dirty....

Good luck .... let us know how you get on.

[Edited by MGJohn - 12/27/2003 3:22:19 PM]

[Edited by MGJohn - 12/27/2003 3:30:30 PM]

Mortywrx

thanks for the replies but yes it was low oil im not sure how it got this low but I didn't start it up till i had new 5 ltr oil supply mobile 1 15/50w fully synth. then I re-did the the oil temp sender and put this in the sump, I then let all the hold oil out all 1 ltrs of it i then put all the new oil back in and took the crank sensor off to prime the oil pump and turned the car over till the oil light went out then put crank sensor back on and took for a slow drive and it seems fine now if not better pulls better any way.

David W could you have a look some time if you have a spare minute???

Darren