5.3 Tick/Knock?

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JPVortex

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Sounds good. Interested to see what you find. Take pics of where you tap into for the mechanical gauge, etc..... and not sure if your plan is to have a gauge permanently, if so, I'd definitely use this instead of the cheap plastic tubing that comes with the mechanical gauge

Will do! And right now I’m just doing a temporary test. I think I’m going to be tapping into where the sending unit usually goes.
 
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JPVortex

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Yeah so about that oil pressure test, that’s not happening. Lost the adapter, it fell onto the bell housing then to god knows where. Should’ve tested it somewhere else. Just going to throw a sending unit on it and see what it reads on the cluster.
 
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Yeah so about that oil pressure test, that’s not happening. Lost the adapter, it fell onto the bell housing then to god knows where. Should’ve tested it somewhere else. Just going to throw a sending unit on it and see what it reads on the cluster.
Yeah so I ordered a new gauge set... Going to hook in near the oil pump behind the PS pump theres a plug. I put the new sending unit in and now it reads 20psi on cold idle. Either it lost more oil pressure or that new sender is DOA.
 

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Yeah so I ordered a new gauge set... Going to hook in near the oil pump behind the PS pump theres a plug. I put the new sending unit in and now it reads 20psi on cold idle. Either it lost more oil pressure or that new sender is DOA.
20PSI on cold idle is definitely not good (if true).
I would definitely suspect the gauge itself...

Again sending units can be bad as well. I always use OE parts so in this case an AC Delco or GM part. One below sounds like the correct one. I assumed you used this one.

 
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20PSI on cold idle is definitely not good (if true).
I would definitely suspect the gauge itself...

Again sending units can be bad as well. I always use OE parts so in this case an AC Delco or GM part. One below sounds like the correct one. I assumed you used this one.

I used a NAPA one. It seems to be doing its job. The idle pressure stays at around 20psi cold or warm. And it does rise when I rev it, but it only goes up to around 40psi no matter what RPM.

I've decided to throw a new pan gasket in and replace that pickup tube O-Ring. The pan gasket is leaking BAD anyways so it's a 2 birds with 1 stone scenario. I started working on it for around an hour today, got to the point where I just have 4 bolts holding the oil pan on. I have the drain plug out and am letting any oil drip out of it into a catch pan overnight to avoid much mess.

Front differential is lowered down, as far as I can get it before it hits the center link, so hopefully that's far enough to get the pan out.
 
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Well well well... This doesn't look very good to me. Pulled the pan off, and yeah the oring has seen better days, it's pretty flat.

BUT, this isn't looking good to me. on the bottom of the pan there is a ton of sludge, with possibly a bunch of metal shavings mixed in. Moving it around my fingers it feels... well sludgy(lol) but also pretty gritty too.

I DO have a magnetic drain plug, could this overtime cause a build up of the metal shavings from regular use wear?

The story that I feel is being told here isn't a good one. First a tick starts. Then half of my oil pressure is gone, and then this sludgy mess on the bottom of the pan...

Here's some pictures and a video.

Video:

1729548073948.png1729548093814.png
 
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Well don’t really think I’ll go much further with this. Coworker of mine who’s a mechanic on the side offered me 3500 for it. I’ll throw it back together with a new pan gasket and pickup oring just so it can run.
 

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