Uh Oh

[FlyingFatass]

So i finally took my truck to a shop to have it checked out by someone more engine savvy than me. It turns out that my lack of oil pressure is most likely not the pump, but a bad main bearing. If thats the case, I don't have the money or tools to make such a fix. I don't think I could afford an engine swap either.

The engine still runs, but according to the mechanic, it's living on borrowed time. It'll seize up eventually. I was planning on selling this thing for 2700 but now it's probably only worth 500.

 

[Rogue_Wulff]

If the main bearing(s) were bad enough to cause little or no oil pressure, you should be able to hear them making lots of noise.

 

[FlyingFatass]

If the main bearing(s) were bad enough to cause little or no oil pressure, you should be able to hear them making lots of noise.

well the valvetrain will tick badly for the first 20 minutes of runtime, but the noise usually subsides after that. I took off the oil cap while the engine was running and not to drop of oil came out.

 

[Explorin94]

Them engines are notorious for a plugged up oil pump screen. Which restricts oil from going through the pump which can make for less oil pressure. There is no real way to check unless you want to drop the pan.

 

[4b316]

Put a can of Lucas Oil treatment and 20-50 oil in it and run it.They only need 15 lbs of oil pressure for the lifters

 

[tomw]

Depending on your willingness to spend time, you can use a properly shaped[bent] coat hanger to scrape crud from the bottom of the oil pickup. At least, so I have read elsewhere. You have to reach in through the drain plug. YMMV.
A bad main bearing would give a very low pitched sound, kind of a thuddy-knock. Some spun main bearings are even totally noiseless.
I don't think you can flush cork particles out of the oil pump pickup. If you could feed the pump, and run it in reverse you might have some success with a flush. Off the top of my head, you could feed flush through the oil pressure pickup under very low pressure, and then use a drill or other mechanism to run the pump backwards using something to replace the distributor drive. I have not done this...
tom