Oil light stays on too long on a cold start

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Cal Schreyer

Cal Schreyer

Dumas
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My 81-87 225 has an issue with the oil light staying on too long when you first start it, around the same length of time you see after an oil change. This engine is very sound, it's a rebuild from a parts store and has about 15,000 miles on it (no oil usage, no blow by) and I'm using 10W/30W oil and a Wix 51806 filter. After start up the light never comes on and goes right out on a warm start. It appears to me the oil is draining out of the filter or maybe an oil pump problem??? Any ideas??
 
Probably not the oil filter, it's probably either a faulty oil pressure warning light sender or low output from the oil pump. For starters, service the oil pressure relief valve to make sure it's not stuck partly open, as described in these two threads: thread 1, thread 2.
 
Why not put a mechanical oil pressure gauge so you can tell exactly how much oil pressure at cold and hot. Since engine was rebuilt could be bearing clearances are a little bigger now.
 
Rebuilt engines have smaller bearing clearances than old ones -- not bigger -- unless someone screwed up bigtime in doing the rebuild.
 
It probably is the oil filter. I have had 2 wix 51515 do it on my 71. Went back to fram and haven't had it since.

Don't know why. But the wix keep doing it.
 
And I have serviced the valve.

I know it's not a faulty light either. You can hear the dreaded rod rattle.
I'll have to do some searching for some other filters besides fram and see what the verdict is.
 
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It is a rebuilt engine probably from a company that is isn't a precision engine builder. With 15,000 miles on it bearing clearances can only get bigger not smaller. If bearing clearance got tighter as we put on the miles, we wouldn't have to worry about having motor rebuilt. He's saying rod knock which tells me too much clearance.
 
I know fram gets a bad rap, but I had a 80 Honda Civic with a 4 banger using fram filters, had 205,000 miles on it. I always used fram because back then they were the easiest to find and the cheapest. Never any problem with engine, but having it for 15 years, I thought it was time to get something a little newer. I changed my oil every 3000 miles because synthetics weren't that wide spread back in the day. I use Mopar filters in my SRT and 05 Ram.
 
The parts store idiots who wouldn't take the extra wix back I had were telling me not to use the fram because of the inferior filtration.

That doesn't really matter when the superior wix let's the oil drain back and the big ends of the rods get beat to hell every cold start..
 
How a filter is oriented determines whether it needs the internal check or not. So some may not be universal applications even though they will screw on.
Let us know if a different filter makes a significant difference.
Since only 9 to 11 psi will turn a oil warning lamp off, a actual oil pressure gauge would be beneficial.
Good luck with it.
 
…and it's also possible Wix oil filters aren't what they used to be; see here. I switched to Fleetguard (Cummins' filtration division); their LF-3487 synthetic-media filter is a complete beast. Instant oil light shutoff on startup, and real good oil analysis numbers even after extended mileage. See here if you wanna try some of them.
 
cdnEHbody said:
I'll have to see if I can locate those here. Thanks Dan.
Click to expand...
I cleaned the oil pressure relief valve, it looked real clean and made no difference ...I changed the oil filter from a Wix 51806 to a Wix 51068 and so far the problem is gone.
And I personally have never had a problem with a "remanufactured" engine.....I have though had problems with engines built by very reputable builders.
Thanks for everyones help...
 
I was curious, nothing to do about problem, but my 72 Duster 6 had the filter upside down so changing oil was a mess. On every car, when I changed oil, I filled up filter before I installed it. Even on horizontal filters I'd fill it up till filter was saturated and then when 1/2 full installed it. If your filter is upside down this step is almost impossible.
 
I seemed to have had similar in my 2.4L Plymouth engine. I didn't like the tiny factory oil filter, so went to a larger diameter one that my 3.8L uses (based on web recommendations). While it fit fine, seems I heard more noise initially from the overhead valve-train after start-up, like the oil had drained back. Seems that decreased when I went back to the normal small oil filter. I think that silicone flap you see thru the holes in the bottom of an oil filter serves as the anti-drainback. But, in my case, the oil lamp went off right away with either filter.
 
slantsixdan said:
…and it's also possible Wix oil filters aren't what they used to be; see here. I switched to Fleetguard (Cummins' filtration division); their LF-3487 synthetic-media filter is a complete beast. Instant oil light shutoff on startup, and real good oil analysis numbers even after extended mileage. See here if you wanna try some of them.
Click to expand...

slantsixdan you are the man!! Was having the two or three second cold start oil light and I ordered the LF - 3487 Fleetguard oil filter for todays oil change and now I get an oil light flash and out she goes!! Thank you so much!!

Mike
 
I haven't checked lately, but it wasn't that long ago that there were old vs new application filters identical in dimension thread etc. that were with & without anti-drainback
"flapper-rings" incorporated in them, something to watch for when asking for a filter or looking it up. I can't imagine why one would be manufactured w/o one these days.
The slanty I built had a lot of oil press cold with 10w-40 in it, like 90-95psi cold, it would idle hot at 20-25psi & peak close to 70psi wound up. I ran into the flapper failing
after 3-4 days driving, I could count one thousand 1,2,3BOOM!! oil pressure!! I changed it, same thing 3 days later, changed it with a different brand,..3 days later ditto.
Tried a 3rd brand and when that one gave it up, I moved My coil to the inner fender, and mounted a remote filter base there angled towards the opening in the K-frame.
The rings all looked deformed, like a ruffle edged throw rug!! LOL!! No idea to this day why and I had 2 other projects at the time & wasn't about to perform a forensic
engineers investigation over it.
 
So perhaps the relief valve in the filter wasnt opening either.
They open /bypass when oil is cold, like the one in the oil pump.

Back to the 2.4 running the small filter, when i worked for the dodge dealer there was a bulletin regarding using the small filter vs the larger one.
I researched filter thread,base gasket and anti drain back with and without relief valves. There were a lot of choices that fit the small block dodges.
Hastings was my preferred filter back in those days.
 
Killer6 said:
The slanty I built had a lot of oil press cold with 10w-40 in it, like 90-95psi cold, it would idle hot at 20-25psi & peak close to 70psi wound up. No idea to this day why
Click to expand...

Because 10W40 is WAY too heavy an oil to be running in a newly-built (or oldly-built but healthy and sound) engine.
 
slantsixdan said:
Because 10W40 is WAY too heavy an oil to be running in a newly-built (or oldly-built but healthy and sound) engine.
Click to expand...
C'mon Mister Selective Editor, I had no problems with the amount oil pressure in the summertime w/that oil because I beat that mill mercilessly :D ! Even though it's on
the high side, it's not like when I killed the engine it was revved up cold, and the filter drainback just couldn't hold back 92psi. I shut all My carbureted vehicles off in gear
at idle, or let the clutch up in high gear as soon as the key's off, no VROOOM VROOOOM & then letting My cylinders & rings take a bath in raw gasoline..........
I didn't think the drainbacks should fail either way, and unfortunately I didn't have time to investigate, so it remains a mystery. As far as the weight, I switched to 10w-30 and added "Duralube" to it one summer, but the pressures hot after thumping on it good were less than I was comfy with, and only worth 1/10 in the quarter so................
 
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