'04 4900 mi, LT's LS1Edit.
Stopped at the gas station and got zero on the OP gauge and "Low Oil Pressure" on DIC and HUD upon start up. I waited 10-15 seconds and it came up to normal, although a little erratic at first. I drove home, parked for an hour and now ZERO and stays there. I tried 3-4 starts and maybe 15-30 sec of idle. Still zero. No lifter noise or anything else, engine is normal in sound. I haven't checked the shop manual yet regarding the signal sources. Do the gauge and DIC have the same source? I'm thinking this is a signal source issue. Anyone else heard of a similar situation?

 

Bad sensor possibly

 

'04 - wrong forum.

 

Sorry, Don't know how I got here. I'll re-post.

 

Either gauge, or Oil Pump. If it is a pump, get a blueprinted one from the forum vendors. Install is a bit expensive as the steering rack or something must be dropped. Common "weak link" part on C5s.

 

If its an 04 with those miles then I would have to imagine its still under warranty, let Chevy fix it.

 

Had the same problem with my 03. Oil pump crapped out at 8000 miles.

 

Gotta say it. Why risk damaging the engine?

If it's the oil pump rather than a sensor/signal issue, you may well incur damage doing a self-diagnosis.

I'd flat bed the car to the dealer without starting the engine again.

Ranger

 

That's what I'm doing. They're picking it up Monday.

 

Please let us know what it turns out to be, IGO200.

Ranger

 

had the same problem with my Z16/Z06 about a month ago.mentioneed it when i took it in for 6K oil change,and the 'vette tech said they'd gotten a tsb from GM re:those exact symptoms!first attempt is to adjust/re-seat the filter screen;then,if that fails to do the job,replace the oil pump.well,you can guess...the second visit for the oil pump replacement corrected the problem!all's well now,and warranty covered it all,including rental vehicle.tech said that about 1 % of LS6 engines have this condition.DO NOT procrastinate!!

 

 

UPDATE:
There is, in fact, no oil pressure. The sump and front cover is coming off today. Tech says there's a bulletin on it- something about the screen. They will inspect for related damage as well.

 

 

My 04' Z06 had its oil pump go out at 8k miles.....Do not run your car anymore....Call the flat bed and let the dealer take care of it...there must of been a bad batch of oil pumps bc the master tech at my dealer told me this was the 4th 04 Z06 that has had this problem...

now with 25k miles...no problems or issues...

Let us know how it turns out..

Ken

 

Sump's off, oil pump is out and disassembled, oil filter is cut open and I cannot see anything that would cause this (and I've seen LOTS of oil pumps).
The pickup is clear and was bolted in place with the O-ring where it belonged. The pump rotor and gear are perfect, the housing has zero scoring, the relief valve slips in and out of the bore easily with no evidence of scoring on the barrel or bore. The oil filter is clean as can be. GM says "put in a new pump" which is happening maybe tomorrow. I want to know what's wrong. It alwyas bothers me when I can't identify a cause. Comments?????

 

First thing you should always do is hook up mechanical pressure test guage to confirm if you actually have zero/low pressure. Nine outa ten it's the sender.

 

That IS the first thing that was done. (see updates above)

 

Got the car back last night and everything seems to be just fine. In fact, the OP is better at 40+ @idle and 55-65@ 4-5k (180F coolant). There were a few twists and turns though. Upon determining that there was in fact no oil pressure the dealer was told by GM to check for the basic causes, that being the pickup screen, the pickup tube O-ring, and the tube retainer screw. This required dropping the sump, and that requires dropping the front suspension and cross member along with the engine mount. To do that a special “bridge-like” support is used to hold the engine up into place without the engine mounts. Very ingenious. This done and all was looking good, no causes found. So GM says change out the oil pump. This requires removal of the crank pulley, front cover, etc. to get to the pump. The pump looked perfect, the relief valve was free and there was no visual evidence of any malfunctions. I called LG and Lingenfelter looking for answers but they were unable to shed any light on the cause, although they did agree that “this just happens sometimes”. I’m not satisfied with that and will continue looking for the defect. The reassembly was a bit problematic because of my LG long tubes. It seems that there is a special tool to hold the flywheel through the hole in the bellhousing exposed with the starter motor removed so that 240 Lb Ft(!) can be applied to the damper bolt to pull it back onto the crank. (The bolt is discarded after the damper is in place and replaced with a new one.) The problem is that you can’t remove the starter with the tubing header in place AND you can’t remove the header with the engine support bridge in place. So, the tech had to put the cross member back in place in order to remove the bridge in order to move the header before putting the pulley on. Of course it’s harder to put the pulley on with the cross member in place, so this all added time to the job. The basic job was warranty, but they charged me 4 hours for the extra fooling around due to the headers, which I think is fair. The car feels tight and strong, and the fresh front end alignment doesn’t hurt either. I’m happy, but I wish I knew why…..