[CraigLC]

Okay...first of all.... greetings earthlings. Its been awhile.


So my 92 chevy van with a 305 v8 blew a head gasket. It was bad enough that some of the anti freeze barfed up the vacuum into the intake but it never over heated. After checking around on prices and since I had a heated garage offerred to work in I decided to tackle this myself. I took it down to the short block and had the heads boiled, cleaned up the valve covers and intake and then with a new gasket kit I went to work. Truck started and runs but it looks like some of my rockers are not getting oil and some that do are VERY weak.

I did change the oil and filter and when manually working the oil pump it will send a gush of liquid out the pressure sending unit hole (oops...cleanup aisle three!) so I know the pump is pushing. I only have the passenger side valve cover off for now because the drivers side I have to remove the AC compressor to get to so I don't technically know if it isnt oiling.

I did manually work the pump with a drill for over five minutes and NONE of the rockers showed any oil coming up...with the truck running, three of the rockers seemingly got no oil while all others seemed to get very little.

My question is.....with all the experienced engine guys here anyone have any thoughts as to what my issue might be? I'm unfamiliar with how oil gets to the push rods exactly so diagnosing is a bit of a problem. This van is my major source of transportation and removin g the oil pan requires lifting the engine so....I wanna be reasonably sure it is required before I do it. Any thoughts?


P.S. A shout out to Pete for helping with head reassembly
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2000 Silver Trans Am

[thechef]

what do you have for oil pressure, sounds like you need to put a new pump in
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[CraigLC]

[thechef]

i would like to know what PSI the pump is running at, its been years since i had run a motor with the valve covers off, but i do know sometimes a pump just goes, i had a new motor back in the day a (mopar340) that had ALL new parts and we got NO oil pressure on start up, we actually refused to believe the guage and argued about it maybe getting pinched during the removal/install if the motor, we pulled the covers and had nothing up top, i mean NOTHING...we swapped in the old pump and all was fine.

i would put a guage on the motor and go from there, the factory guage unless it reads PSI is not a good representation of what is going on.
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[CraigLC]

Just wanted to say thanks for the help. In calling around it was suggested that I try to use a motor flush from Gunk. It thins out the oil a lot and clears out the crap. Essentially it seems like things I've done in the past with Seafom from Napa. Anyway I flushed it, and manually oiled the rockers with a squirt can while it ran the flush through the system. I saw some improvement and changed the oil. I then flushed it again and saw a greater improvement. It now has fresh oil and another new filter. The rockers are all oiling themselves and nice and quiet.

I did hook up a manual PSI style guage to the block where the electronic sending unit was and as best as I can tel I was getting about 30 - 40 psi. This guage had marking for 25 and then 50 with some lines in between. I had to estimate obviously. It seemed like it was idling at about 32 PSI.

So tomorrow it will be backing out of the garage under its own power and I'll let it idle and watch the guages and check for leaks. If all goes well I'll be road testing it tomorrow evening around the neighborhood. From there it will be light duty for a week or two to be sure it all holds together.

I only had one left over bolt but it was just to the cold air intake (stock) which lost a tab in the process. After a bit of blood...definitely some sweat and quite a bit of lava soap it looks like about $500 in parts and 32 hours of labor for myself and my father to change the head gaskets on a 92 chevy contractor van with a 305. Not to shabby since I was being quoted 1500-2000.
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2000 Silver Trans Am