sandman

Thats impressive! I've never seen better then 19. :-\

If you do it post up! I'm curious to see how others turn out. I would like to see how much relation there is to the tick and the overall oil pressure barring other valve train related problems.

I shimmed the spring on the relief valve in the pump. The spring compresses on oil pressure and bleeds it off so you dont have too much oil pressure. Its not like an on off switch. Its always beeding some and bleeds more as the pressure goes up from RPM or cold oil or whatever. Over time, the springs get softer and bleeds more through. This is an old trick on Chevy engines where you pull the spring out and slip in a few small washers to raise the tension. I always thought this was a little redneck untill I pulled apart the high volumn units that I was buying and found the only different was a higher tension spring. So... In my latest oil pressure escapade (turn out to be a dented pan), I ended up pulling out the spring and putting a small ground round nut in the valve base itself (looks like a thimble). This puts more pressure on the reliefe valve and slows down the bleed off. Before this and before the oil pressure problem (caused by the dented pan) I was having the occasional tick problem and the motor was always a little noisy. Now I have no tick and the motor is the quietest that I have ever had it. You dont want to shim it too much though as you dont want too much pressure. I have about 85 pounds on a cold startup and 20 at an idle and around 50 on the freeway after its good and hot. The lifters are getting plenty of oil now. This is on a motor that hase around 200K on it. I did this mod with the pump out of the car but I think you can do it in the car. It is the 12mm bolt that is on the bottom of the pump and points to the drivers side of the engine. Undo it and you will get a spring, a small washer and the thimble vavle might even come out. Put 2 or so small washers in where the spring sits into the thimble valve and put it back together making sure that the spring goes into the thimble housing and doesnt catch on the lip and see if you have a pressure change. Real easy to experiment. We did it on Chev trucks but its not very easy to get to the pump and to do this mod.

That interior looks just like mine with the seats and stuff. What makes up the "pimp" interior?

Shimming the oil pump fixed my ticking problem completely. Maybe you could try that.

I disagree, the spring does make a difference. Every aftermarket high pressure pump that I have been into has been a stock unit with a higher tension of relief spring. Some pumps that I have had even came with diffferent springs so that you could tailor the pressure. Now, I've only built a few dozen race motors so I'm sure that you could get high dollar parts that have a higher tooth count or something but I dont see how it could be done with a redesign of the entire pump. Then you are talking dollars. The prices that I have seen on high volume pumps for Subaru's tell me that the spring is the only mod besides its also a new pump. The relief valve is not an all or nothing thing. it is variable and in one way or another, is always letting oil relieve past the high pressure side. The spring is not strong enough and the seal is not good enough to only start oil pressure relief at a certain level. It is always there, just becoming more pronounced as pressure rises. Its not like a water thermostat where it opens or shuts at a certain temperature. Shimming the spring will always raise overall pressure unless the system (meaning pump and or motor) is in bad shape. I do admit that shimming it up is a bit redneck and the proper method is to replace the entire spring with a higher tension version, a few washers always works in a pinch and is a cheap trick to get some more time out of an older motor. The nice thing is you can do this to an EA82 without pulling the pump. It could be a 2 minute job for somebody with a 12mm socket and a few washers. Now that I've said my little speech, I'd like a few more people to give it a try and see what happpens.

I took it out and got it up to temperature to see where things ended up at. I ripped it up good to get the oil real hot, took some good long pulls with the turbo winding, etc... At 3,000 rpm the pressure sits at 45 pounds with oil good and hot. At 4,000 rpm the pressure is a little over 50 pounds. At idle the pressure was at the lowest I saw of 16 pounds. It was 20 pounds when I stopped rodding it and things cooled down some. This is on a motor with almost 200K on it. I dont know what it was before increasing the pressure on the pump. It would be interesting to see. And not a tick in sight. :cool:

Fixed! I did two things. The oil pump speced out just fine. So I shimmed up the releif valve so I could get some more pressure out of it. And, MorganM was on the money. The oil pan was dented up real good. I ended up sliding a large scredriver in through the oil drain plug hole and did some bending around. Fired it back up with fresh oil and filter and hit 85 pounds! Held steady at 80 pounds. I'll drive it to work tomorow and see how it does after it gets warmed up.

I looked at mine and does look like it can be pulled without removing the timing belts. My bad.

I'll check out the pan. I've got the pump out right now and it looks fine. Thinking about shimming the spring a little for some more pressure. I've installed a mechanical guage so its good on that point.

The how-to on this site is what got me through the first oil pump change. Its not too bad once you figure out the three lines and then rotate thing. I've been into it a few times. Twice for the oil pump and once for the water pump.

The right side timing belt needs to come off also. I found it much easier to pull the bracket assembly that holds the AC and the alternator to get to everything. I've got mine torn down now to get to the oil pump.

Thanks for the replies! Looks like I have the guage hooked up correctly then. I have been driving it around for about a month with no changes so it looks like I'll get to tear it back down again. Thanks for the idea on the oil pick up. I'll drop the pan and check it out too.

I have the same problem with my heater also. I flushed the entire system out with a hose, put in a new water pump, thermostate, radiator and cap. It heats up fine on the guage but the air is lukewarm on the heater. I parked on a hill and add water to top it off and everything. I'm down to a real stubburn air pocket in the heater core. Cant think of anything else. And its cold here.

OK, heres the situation. Motor was ticking bad. I replaced the seals on the oil pump and it went away for several months. The previous seals where bad and broken. A few weeks ago I went on a wheeling trip to test out the dual range conversion. After one specific hard bump, the oil light flipped on and the ticking began again. I shut it off and cooled it down and it fired up OK with no oil light. Driving around I would get occasional oil light flashes and off and on ticking. I the installed an aftermarket oil guage. I connect the guage into where the sender for the oil light was. The pump also has a sender for a stock guage as this motor is not the origianal. I didnt use it as I didnt have the adapter on me at the time. So now the guage see's about 15 pounds when first fired up and it quickly drops to around 7 to zero puns no matter what the engine is doing. Rpm seems to make no difference at all. Sooo.... Is that the correct place to connect the guage in the first place? Before the hard bump, no ticking and no oil light at all. Any ideas? Would this be a bad oil pump or should I get ready for an engine rebuild? It runs great, just bad oil pressure even with fresh oil in it. Let me know what you think. I'm ready to tear it back down to look at the oil pump again but I'm looking for other opinions first. This is on my '87 GL10 Turbo car. Thanks.