PumpDaddy

Coming home from the shop Saturday afternoon and the freaking idiot light on the oil pressure was on, I looked at my manual guage and it said a BIG 0 psi. I just killed the switch in traffic and coasted to the side of the road, and first thought was how much is this gonna cost me, we just paid off the truck, it's MINE free and clear and now I need a new motor. I got out and popped the hood, and there was oil EVERYWHERE. I finally found that the copper line to my guage had blown out of the fitting. This line has been on there since 2 days after I bought the truck, over 45K miles ago, no leaks, no problems and then BAM. Since I was only about 1 mile from home, I guess the Cummins Angels where with me because I had just stopped at Wally World and bought 3 gallons of oil to do a change. so I figured I'd fill her up and at worst limp home with a knock or two and pray it didn't sling a rod thru the block, but when I fired it up, AFTER fixing the oil line, I had about 5 psi higher pressure and it sounded the same, as best I can tell. Since I'm amost deaf on one side and have lost some on the other side, it's hard for me to tell, but my wife says she has been hearing a "ticking" for a month or so, it's way past due to have the valves adjusted. What I want to know is there ANY company that makes an oil pressure guage with a low pressure warning light or real LOUD alarm, and if I drain some oil, will an oil analysis tell me if it's hurt. It only took 2 1/2 gallons to fill it up, maybe I noticed the light in time. I drove it today out to our house that we are building and the oil pressure stayed up, but I have to be in San Antonio, Tx in 2 weeks and will be hauling a LOAD of pumps, so I don't need any problems.

wannadiesel

I don't think you hurt it. I had the same thing happen to me on my old 318 powered D-250 - I got 'er home by sticking the broken line in the breather to recirculate the leak. Filled 'er up again and no problems. Oil analysis will tell you if you hurt it bad, there will be abnormally high levels of wear metals in the sample. I would do it just for peace of mind. Blackstone Labs did my last analysis, but I think there are places that do it cheaper.

I like nylon line better than copper, it doesn't fatigue from vibration.

You can get an oil pressure switch from your local auto parts store, you'll have to look in the paper catalog and find one with the specs you need. The Standard Electric catalog at CarQuest stores has a good variety of switches. You want a switch that closes at 10 psi, that's the minimum acceptable from Cummins. You could mount a trailer brake light and an alarm siren from JC Whitney on the dash, but remember that will be annoying when you start the truck in the morning after a late night. Come up with something that'll get your attention (maybe a shift light aimed at your face?) without making you so sick of it that you disconnect it after a couple of weeks.

Geico266

I think you'll be okay. Like one guy on here says, "Drive it like you stole it". I would have the valves adjusted though. I hear a ticking sounds once in a while at idle, but after 155K miles I firgure she is just talking to me. I'm do for an adjustment also.

IMHO I wouldn't over react about the warning thing. Once bitten, twice shy. It was a once in a life time deal I'll bet. Look under the hood every oil change and wiggle stuff around. You'd be surprised what you can find and fix before it goes bad. When I change the oil I grab everything and wiggle it. I just replaced all the vacuum hoses because they were cracked.

What did your temps look like when you noticed the red light?

infidel

No need to worry.
Before the oil filter was redesigned for the higher oil pressures on the 24 valves it was quite common for folks to lose all their oil when a filter spilt open. Out of the dozens of stories I've heard not one had to replace anything except the oil and filter. One fellow I know had to drive two miles with no oil pressure to find a place to pull off the road, that was in '99, truck is still going strong with no oil related problems.

Smokee

Think about the overflow valve for the ticking, especially if it happens when the truck gets warm.

PumpDaddy

OK, for starters, my LATE nights are sitting here at this you know what computer and answering e-mails, doing quotes and talking on the phone to "people" that don't understand what a time zone is. I ain't that dang deaf that I need a back up alarm in the cab, but the 400 watts and subs do help drown out momma when she gets on my nerves. My bad is that the manual guage is mounted down low and when I'm going straight, the steering wheel blocks the guage a little bit, but I tend to watch the road a lot more than I do the guages. The temps where "normal" according to the stock gauge. I think I might try and find a 12 volt relay with a 5-10 second delay and wire it thru a pressure switch to activate a light on the dash, but I'll for sure be moving the guage up higher where it's easier to see and keep a check on. But what's got me bumfuzzled is why did I pick up about 5 psi on the guage, if it was loose enough to bleed that much pressure, then it should have been peeing oil everywhere and it wasn't. Oh well, maybe I should just thank the Cummins Angels, say THANK YOU and count my blessings, as this is just one of many

Dr. Evil

You Alabama boys should probably be driving FORDS....ya'll dont have much luck with the Cummins

spunbearing

You can either rig a light or buzzer or install a low pressure kill that closes your shut-off solenoid. Sounds like you got lucky and didn't tank your engine.

PumpDaddy

she still runs like a scolded dog, I KNOW the valves need to be run, but we have been moving into the new house since Friday afternoon, crap, I'm finding stuff I didn't even knew we owned. I knew I should have set fire to it all when I had the chance . The oil pressure is staying up higher than it used to, I guess it just blew out the crap and cleared the passages, it even builds pressure quicker in the mornings after sitting all night, and this morning it was 36* in the driveway at the top of the hill. Now I have to figure out how to get her into the basement without ripping of the back fenders. The driveway comes up 185 feet then flares out to a 30 x 30 pad, I've got 6 ft of dirt off the edge of the pad, then a 15 ft drop, I may just pull the grill up to the retaining wall to block the wind and plug it in, and OH yeh, if anyone wants to help lay down 40 pallets of sod, feel free to come by here and pitch in , I just got 1 pallet finished. I'm too old for this, maybe I'll get finished by spring time

Jim Lane

Just hate it when you are going deaf.. The part you are looking for is called a Murphy Switch, it connects to the oil line and can be set to shut down the engine or sound an alarm when the pressure drops below a preset pressure. Almost all military generators and unattended equipment use them. I have seen them on perkins, kiki, white powered gensets. You can construct a simple one with just a Hobbs pressure switch, momentary push button and a bosch relay. The way it works is there will be no power to the fuel solenoid when you crank to start untill the hobbs reaches 10 psi then the relay will energize and power the fuel solenoid. The momentary switch shorts out the hobbs so it starts up normally. I have them on my generators and have had them on my race engines. Also I would use either a Aeroquip or Stratoflex braided SS line to connect to the block.
It will probably never happen again but I always think "Well what if..."
Just my $.02 Jim