Hey fellows I need some advice. I own a 97 Dodge Ram 1500 Club Cab Sport with 318 and automatic transmission. The truck has around 150,000 miles on it. Last weekend my oil pressure dropped off to zero. I shut the truck off and checked the oil level, it was fine. Got back into the truck and started it back up and the pressure was fine for about 2 minutes then started dropping again. Installed a mechanical gauge and got the same results. Does this sound like sludge in the pick-up or a faulty oil pump? Note that the engine sounds fine while the pressure is down, I mean it doesn't knock or ping or rattle the lifters. Speeding the engine up doesn't make any diference either. Also know that I changed my oil to snythetic on the last oil change and added a can of Restore to it. This was about 1 to 2 months ago. Please any inputs would be appreciated.

 

i couldn't really tell if it is sludge....but heres my experience
i've got a 2000 with 150000 miles on it and i took the motor out cuz a freeze plug rusted through and upon taking off the valve covers and intake manifold i found gunky sludge at least a half an inch thick....it could very well be clogging up your oil pump and keeping it from pumping the oil.
what i would try is take off one of the valve covers and see if they're getting oil when its running....and then see if the oil keeps being pumped even when the pressure drops to zero
sorry i can't be more help

 

I'd Drop the pan and pull the pump off and replace it. Its like 30 dollars at O'reilly's and clean the pickup with parts cleaner really good and let it dry. It also gives you a chance to look at the bottom end. That would be my first plan of action.
If it were coolant in the oil you should be able to see it on the dip stick, looks like thick chocolate milk.

I replaced mine when i did my pan gasket it took an extra few mins but i have 180,000 and figured i might as well while I was in there.

 

Thanks guys,I will try this this weekend.

 

your engine has high miles on it, which means that its worn. when you swich to synthetic oil, and your run spec weight, which is 5w-30. it will cause a pressure problem. try running a non synthetic oil and swich to 10w-30, or 40 to see if the problem continues. i would at least try this idea before replacing parts

 

what did you ever end up doing? find anything out? now my truck has got the same problem haha

 

When I pulled the pan I found that the baffle on the bottom of the oil pick-up screen was almost completely clogged. Only a small area directly under the opening was clear. I replace the pick-up and the pump while I was in there and my oil pressure is better than ever. During this evolution I took my oil pressure sending unit out and installed a manual pressure gauge, just to make sure it wasn't the sending unit. I was suprised to find that when everthing was fixed the pressure acually runs 60-65 pounds but the sending unit only reads about 45.