no oil pressure?

[grumpyvette]

I am having problems with the 350 in my nova having no oil pressure.
I had a sticking float in my carb, and flooded the engine. I had several quarts of fuel in the oil so I drained and changed the oil, and the filter. but when re-Started the nova up to play with the carb and set the floats in the carb I saw the oil pressure was running very low, I immediately shut it off.
I pulled the distributor out and used a priming tool to spin the pump, and I can hear the oil pump making a sucking,noise almost like its sucking a little oil and alot of air. ANY IDEAS?

ok, theres several factors here to look into, first if you had several quarts of fuel mixed with the oil theres is some potential that the bearings were damaged , if the oil pans easy to drop Id have dropped it and inspe4cted the bearings for damage, but I strongly suspect in a nova pulling the oil pan for a quick bearing inspections going to be a huge P.I.T.A.
but if the fuel/oil contamination was only over a very limited time frame that,s un-likely, as it would take some time and a few minutes trying to start the car with oil laced with fuel is unlikely to significantly damage the bearings.
Id suggest checking the oil pressure with a second test oil pressure gauge because the fuel/laced oil might have damaged the old gauge.
now that you changed the oil and oil filter and have corrected the stuck carb float and are no longer mixing fuel with the oil, your low oil pressure could be the result of a damaged oil pressure sensor or gauge but its also possible that the oil pump pick-up came loose, allowing the oil pump to suck air rather than just oil.
draining the oil and using an inspection tool, that easily slides thru the oil pan drain plug hole, to look into the oil pan without pulling it could be very helpful at this point, you also might find the oil pump pick-up screen loaded with loose trash that the solvent/fuel/laced oil broke loose, restricting the oil flow.

if both a test gauge shows continuing low oil pressure and you determine the oil pump pick-up is not a problem, Id pull the engine and inspect the bearings before you incur further damage, at this point you might get away with just a few bearings and gaskets, but if you run it for long with low oil pressure its going to get expensive
http://www.toolrage.com/prodView.asp?sku=SLI-PV618 (do a google search on (SLIPV618)

http://www.bing.com/shopping/provision- ... =SLIPV618&

both these sensors, located near the base of the distributor on the block, are known to fail & leak,oil at times, especially the smaller one with two blade connectors


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there are oil pump testers available commercially or if your mechanically inclined you can fabricate one with reasonable care, after a bit of measuring and purchasing a gauge[/b]
http://cvrproducts.com/oil-pressure-test-kit/