Oil pump, talk to me

[Yiannis197]

As our cars are getting older and clock 70k+ miles when would be a good time you reckon to have the oil pump replaced? A few stories out there with broken engines due to an oil pump failure and the actual pump is not that expensive and relatively easy to change.

Would you do it to prevent the nasty thing from happening or you wouldn't worry about it? Would it worth installing on oil pump gauge just to see whether the pump is healthy?I've started getting a bit paranoid as the car is 11 years old.

Thanks

 

[tcw]

Quite curious as to what people say here - I have been wondering myself.

 

[Beany]

I’m worried now this has been mentioned, I’d also like to know lol

 

[peter]

@trackspec197 ... ?

 

[Foxspeed]

i wouldnt not at those miles...for me theres more chance of a rod failure or valve dropping....(those were the biggest f4r engine issues we had in work back in the day)

 

[trackspec197]

@trackspec197 ... ?

Agreed with the above. It’s not a common failure on the F4R engine in particular. I have seen oil pumps fail but believe it or not it’s not always down to the pumps mechanical failure, it’s often down to sump sealant blocking the oil pick up or worse still blue paper towel! I’ve seen that a few times. It’s so common that people will use blue towel to clean the dipstick on checking the oil level and actually leave a little on when they push it back into the sump.

The oil pump is such a simple mechanical part and should be designed for the life of the engine. Saying this if I was to rebuild the motor then I would as a matter of course change it along with numerous other wearable parts.

I’d be a lot more concerned with snapping a valve, valve train failure or a connecting rod.

 

[rSilva]

... it’s often down to sump sealant blocking the oil pick up or worse still blue paper towel! ...

That and going over the cam covers when they start leaking. Doing that releases so much crap that after a couple of miles it's worth pulling the sump to clean all the crap and the oil pickup itself.

In the process I would also open the pickup window a bit. The mesh itsefl is not that small but the window is.

 

[Yiannis197]

Great stuff, some very decent piece of info here. Thanks gents, you put my mind at ease