Oil light on, no oil pressure, car stopped

[eugenepeabody]

Thank you for the replies!

I feel much better now and definitely freaked when I thought it was a low oil issue.

I will start troubleshooting per the recommendations in this thread.

[Ron]

Treat it like a No Start problem and narrow it down to fuel or ignition first -- Put a phillips screwdriver in one of the easy plug wires and see if it jumps spark to ground (e.g engine block) when someone tries to start it, or, spray some starting fluid/carb cleaner under the air metering plate and try it.

[opethmike]

Treat it like a No Start problem and narrow it down to fuel or ignition first -- Put a phillips screwdriver in one of the easy plug wires and see if it jumps spark to ground (e.g block) when someone tries to start it, or, spray some starting fluid/carb cleaner under the air metering plate and try it.

I usually touch the plug wire to my tongue.

[Parzival]

I usually touch the plug wire to my tongue.

Perhaps a video tutorial is in order? I'd like to see exactly how you perform the test before attempting it myself.

[David T]

The wire to the sending unit for the oil light gets burnt up and once the insulation is burnt off the wire can contact ground and illuminate the warning light. Remove the other sending unit by the oil filter and hook up a mechanical pressure gauge to check oil pressure once you get the motor started. My guess is the oil pressure gauge wasn't working but you didn't notice that till the warning light lit up. I am betting you have oil pressure once you figure out why the motor won't start. Rare for a PRV to lose oil pressure and have a crankcase full of oil.

[Ron]

I usually touch the plug wire to my tongue.

But...but, you can't see the spark if unless you make it jump...

[Parzival]

But...but, you can't see the spark if unless you make it jump...

But you can feel it!

[Ron]

But you can feel it!

Really??
I'll have to wait for the vid before I believe that...

[eugenepeabody]

I had to work Saturday so I didn't get a chance to look at the car again until last night. I turned the key and the engine turned right over and all my gauges were reading appropriately.

And now that I think about it twice in the past the car was hard to start and both times it had been sitting out in the sun for a couple hours. It was 100+F on my drive yesterday too. Is the heat causing this? With this added information, where would you start troubleshooting?

Thank you

[kings1527]

I had to work Saturday so I didn't get a chance to look at the car again until last night. I turned the key and the engine turned right over and all my gauges were reading appropriately.

And now that I think about it twice in the past the car was hard to start and both times it had been sitting out in the sun for a couple hours. It was 100+F on my drive yesterday too. Is the heat causing this? With this added information, where would you start troubleshooting?

Thank you

A sudden engine cutout as you referenced in your first post versus more of a hot start problem as described in your most recent post are two different things. When you're talking about the car being hard to start after sitting out in the sun, did you drive the car beforehand and it was difficult to start after sitting (a true hot start problem) or was it just sitting out in the sun after not being run for 12+ hours and difficult to start at that point? (cold start problem).

If you're driving the car and it suddenly cuts out, you could be looking at an impulse coil issue (which typically will resolve after cooling down) or a fuel pump problem, as well. Which fuel pump are you running? I had a early version of the DMCH integrated unit and the pump would cut out and kill the engine after I had been driving in hot conditions for an hour or so.

When the car cuts out, does it sputter first and then stop (more fuel related) or does it cut out instantly (possibly more electrical related)?

I think the easiest way to tackle this is to wait until it happens again and then do a plug swap in the engine compartment: take the gray plug off of the warm up regulator, disconnect the blue connector from the cold start valve, and plug the gray plug from the WUR into the CSV. Try starting it then and if it starts (but runs rough...normal for this test), that'll let you know you're looking at a fuel delivery problem. If it doesn't start, then you're looking at electrical.

If it doesn't start when you do the plug swap, look at the tach when you're cranking. If the tach doesn't bounce, then you could be looking at a bad ECU.

Try the plug swap when the problem replicates and figure out if it's fuel or electrical and then let's start there. Way too many possibilities at this point. Bad coil, ballast resistor connections, etc. Too much time to spend testing random stuff without knowing fuel or electrical first.