Oil light keeps coming on when idle.

[eraser]

Howdy,
I have this strange problem, now it has been winter here for a while but when driving for about 25 -35 mins the oil seems to get to hot and the oil light starts flashing when im ideling in gear, i change out of gear 5 seconds later the light comes on, when i accellerate it dissapears, read  my haynes repair manual but wawnt much help to me just wondering if anyone has had the same problem, would a hose not connected to one of the heat exchangers be a cause for this?
-M

[bookwus]

Hiya Eraser,

Assuming that you have enough oil and it is of the correct weight your problem is not related to one of heater hoses being disconnected.  Rather, it sounds like you may have an oil pump problem.  As in, the oil pump is going out.

Mike

1970 AS Bug

[eraser]

Im assuming that the oil pump on an automatic is special and expensive
-M

[bookwus]

Hiya Eraser,

The answer to that question is a decided "yes and no".

It is special.  The pump is divided into two halves (there's a good diagram of it in the Bentley.  Look in the Engine section).  The inner half pumps engine oil and the outer half pumps ATF.  When the tolerances get out of spec due to wear, the pump loses its ability to adequately pressurize the lines.  And it is possible for one half of the pump to fail and the other half could function normally.

These critters can be expensive.  For example CIP1 (IIRC) is offering a rebuilt AS pump at $100+ (can't remember the exact figure).  On the other hand I've found that they can be realtively cheap also.  I've purchased a few as parts in a lot when somebody has sold their old AS equipment.  Buy the lot of parts for $100 and get the oil pump plus a bunch of other stuff.

Mike

1970 AS Bug