Hi all......... First post......Thanks in advance........

Im trying to help a retired Army veteran friend..........
He has a 1996 Dodge 5200 van with a 5.2 L engine ( I know this is the truck fourm, but I know yall would be more help ) He said one day while driving the oil light came on, he switched the engine off and had it towed home.
I pulled the dog box engine cover and removed the oil pressure sendind unit and installed a pressure gague, started the engine and its reading 0 pressure, even tried another gague, same thing-zero. My question is it possible the oil pump shaft came out of the distribture or something..........

 

The pump drive shaft is a gear, and a shaft...... that runs down to the pump. The distributor just plugs into a slot on the top side of it.

If he is indeed getting zero pressure, the shaft may have broken below the gear, so, the engine will still run, but, the pump.... erm... won't.

Drop the oil pan, and have a look. Another common problem is, the pickup getting clogged with assorted sludge. That one will be obvious. May have to pull the pump to check the drive shaft.

Welcome to DF! (and to your veteran buddy as well.)

 

Thanks for the reply,


Im gonna try not to pull the oil pan !! I was thinking about removing the distribture and see if i could see/retrive the shaft, I have done that on SB chevy engines. It would seem odd that with the engine running and at opreating temp the oil screen could glog up all the sudden, it could however after sitting up do that I guess............

 

It would be better to pull the pan, its hard to get to the distributor with the engine fully assembled, and you don't mess up the fuel sync.

 

He has a van, so, getting to the disty is childs play. Fuel sync, on the other hand, is indeed a major issue. Don't mess with the dist, unless it turns out you have to.

 

So if you pull the dist. you will in some way mess with the fule injection timing ?? I was planing to mark the dist. rotor location and the poition in he block.........Im not sure how hard it would be to pull pan on the Van.......

 

Mark everything as carefully as you can. Worst case is, you will have to take it to the dealer to have fuel sync reset.

You can pull the driveshaft out the same way you would in the SBC. If it is indeed broke though, you will probably still have to drop the pan, which is why I suggested going in that way anyway..... of course, if the shaft is broke, you will have to pull the dist anyway.

Six of one, half dozen of the other.

 

I bet it aint no fun pulling the pan on a van.

 

I would tend to agree with ya, reason I dont wont to think about doing it...

 

I guess I am confused with the fuel timing getting thrown off by pulling the dist. I have worked on a number of other engines and never ran across this ?? I guess the dealer has some equipment that regular folk caint aquire ??