ninjacoco

Uh-oh--what's wrong with my car?


This is my 944 ChumpCar that I recently started farting around the neighborhood with because, well, why not? Problem is, the oil light starts to flicker when it's stopped with the brake and clutch in. The light flickers less the longer the car's been puttering around.

I've also noticed that the car's clutch pedal sometimes hangs up halfway down, which seems like either an air bubble in the line or a master/slave cylinder issue. Both seem deal-withable, but would that cause a rando oil light to come on?

Or should I not worry about this light at all? Help!

Dougs951S

when you say the pressure improves the longer the car has ran; what exactly do you mean? If you're talking about it improving over the first 15-20 seconds the car is running, that can indicate a pump not holding prime while off. That isnt what you mean here though. Oil pressure improving as the oil warms up is probably an electrical fault either with the sender or the gauge. What kind of oil pressures are you seeing on start up? what about hot idle? driving above 2k rpm with a hot engine? what kind of coolant temps are you seeing when the fans come on? At what oil pressure does the light come on?

How are you doing? I remember working on that chump car some years ago..

SeanR

It's hot in Texas, what oil and viscosity are you running?

ninjacoco

Oh! I meant that the light got more solid, not the pedal or anything. As in, less flickering. So weird.
Oil pressure usually looks OK AFAIK, but I'll take a look at it this afternoon just to see.

Added the YouTube because it wasn't working earlier. It's so weird. The oil light goes away when I hit the throttle or get moving.

I'm good! Just been slammed with work. Got hurt last year and couldn't do anything for ~5 mos. or so, which sucked, but I'm back and I want to get this 944 running well again, heh.

Mobil1 High Mileage 10w40.

Tiger03447

Pull the sender and put a direct reading gauge on it..check it when it's hot and idling. You need about 10lbs of oil pressure (minimum) for every 1000 RPM. That should let you know if it's a sender/gauge problem or a main bearing/oil pump problem.

ninjacoco

Welp, now I have a bigger problem than an unexplained light. I did have only one fan not working. No big deal, just limit the time spent stopped. Now I have two fans that don’t work. Both fans. All the fans on the car.

I kept wondering why they weren’t turning on when the water temperature gauge got over its halfway mark after I tracked the car today. It kept running hotter and hotter even though I was on the freeway, with air going through the radiator at speed. What the crap? Even when I had both fans dead, it didn’t overheat like that. It didn't do this on track, either.

Then I noticed that my engine bay was kinda steamy/smoky and the temp gauge was dipping into the “nope” zone. Pulled over off the freeway. Then it started getting really smoky out the hood. I stopped in a parking lot. Waited for it to cool off. It did pretty quickly. Then it ran okay the rest of the way home—cool and fine like it usually runs. Again, I must ask: what the crap?

Immediately before this, I had a perfect 30-minutes or so on track, too. Ran like a dream. But then it started behaving strangely. The car started up rough a few times until I gave it a little throttle. We taped up a cracked hose going to the airbox just in case it might've had a leak in there. But then it was okay, and running smoothly upon startup, like there was nothing wrong. But the sucker just wouldn't get and stay cool.

Any possible relation to my oil light/clutch problems? I did notice that on the way to the track, I lost enough hydraulic pressure in the clutch a couple times such that the pedal would drop from its usual depressed position all the way to the floor—both times at stoplights. Or is this a new issue?

GPA951s

I had a scirocco that did the same thing with the oil... Put a gauge on it and realized that I was in denial of the truth... the bearings were shot... when the car was cold it had "almost enough" oil pressure at idle and no light or a flicker.. as it warmed up, come to a stop and oil light went on... Drove it for over a year that way, I ultimately fixed it ..........by selling it LOL....

Smike

For sure - get a real oil pressure gauge. Hate to bring bad news but that sounds like you have a bearing going or gone. I would not drive more until you get the pan off and look at bearing #2. Job can be done with the motor in car and supported. Van has a nice video on how.

Fans - the early car has a thermo switch on the radiator. That could be going. Test by giving direct power to both the fans to see if they work. If yes, I would suspect the switch. Or just hard wire the fans to a switch in the car and make manual on/off...because racecar.

Clutch - try a bleed but slaves do go and are pretty easy to swap out.

Also check water/coolant and oil for mixture. If you have oil in water or water in the oil - that oil cooler on the side of the block is leaking.

MAGK944

Have you checked your oil to see if it has coolant in it?

A loss of coolant might be why your temp sensor isn't reading the coolant temperature and turning the fans on and your oil pressure sensor will find it hard to register the pressure of oil & coolant mixed.

ninjacoco

No coolant in the oil, thank goodness—well, as far as I can tell. There would still probably be some green stuff in the system as it's just been going to track days and such, and I haven't noticed the milky soup on my dipstick or anything. Just oil, as far as I know. (I hope.) And there's definitely coolant in the coolant reservoir.

I'm guessing if I take the engine pan off, it's time to do the rod bearings anyway. Welp. Glad I bought a new oil pan seal, I guess.

StoogeMoe

Sounds like you have multiple problems going on there. Running hot on the freeway can mean a couple of things. You have a coolant leak and it formed a bubble in your system and was not able to circulate the water. Or you had a stuck thermostat that was mostly closed. Kind of a mystery that it self healed when you let it cool down. It might indicate that it was the thermostat. You should also pressure test the coolant system to determine there are no leaks. Did you add water after you let it cool down?

ninjacoco

Yep. I added just a tiny bit of water into the reservoir just in case. The car had been peeing coolant regularly out of the overflow hose until I bled the air out of the system, but it didn't seem to be doing that now. Bled any air out the bolt at the top of the system once I was home just in case as well.

I'll have to check out the thermostat, then. Grumble.

elgy

I just replaced the thermo fan switch in the radiator... mine died suddenly. Easy way to check is to unplug the wires from the switch and used something to connect them, if the fans start up the fans are OK and the thermo switch isn't.

Ish_944

I think your problem is that your engine is so hot -see temp gauge in video- that the oil overheats and looses its viscosity. At this point there's a good chance that all your bearings and possibly valves/valve guides are gone.

The possible fault diagnoses above are spot on.

mel_t_vin

10w-40 synthetic...in a 944 destined for the track? How long have you been doing this...since you've owned it?