Thread: VE idle = oil light

I just had Erick212 and MarkSR20 drop a VE into my Classic. We tried to run UR pulleys w/ the DE spacer and eventually learned that it doesn't work. The VE spacer is BACK in along w/ the stock VE pulley. When the car starts right up, the oil light is unless you rev it up to about 4k, then it turns off. The light will come back on at times around 1000-1200rpm. I am wondering if the VE spacer got damaged and is losing oil pressure at idle? Any thoughts?? The car runs completely fine otherwise. Kicks over great. Drives smooth. OH and we are running 3 7/8qts of 10w30 right now.

Did you tighten the UR pulley down when you had the DE spacer in there? If so, you might have cracked the oil pump drive. I wouldn't be driving it around until you figure out what the problem is..

I am pretty sure it was tightened. The DE spacer is shorter in overall length than the VE one though, so would it crack the drive? When the car is not idling though there is no light...?

I already told him he damge the oil pump. He did not want to listen to me. He thinks it is the spacer that got damged, I told him the spacer is a big chunk of metal that will not get damaged unless you hit it with a big hammer.

The only other thing else that could have is if the little key pc that sits in the crank fell out and the spacer which turns the pump is rotating freely as the key is needed for the spacer to rotate with the crank which turns the pump but I dont think that is the problem because tightening down the pully would have made everything stable.

i concur above the lil piece probably fell out.

I am thinking it might be the pump as well. But if the key fell out then might be a simpler job than a whole pump.

To answer all questions... The key did not fall out as it was checked many of times. When the DE spacer went in(we were told this was ok) the UR pulley was installed and the oil light was on with no oil pressure. We then tried to take the DE spacer out, this was not coming out, a puller was made and the DE spacer was removed. Getting the VE spacer back on was fine and a new oil seal was installed as the previous one was damaged during uninstall.

When his car is at idle the oil light flickers off/on. When its anywhere above 1100rpm the oil light is not on. Whenever it is under a load the oil light is not on. I told him the best bet is to put an oil pressure gauge on the car and see where it is. PhorB13 was told by a reliable source that the DE spacer and UR DE pulley is ok to install on the VE motor, we found that this is not the case. The car drives great now with the VE spacere and stock VE pulley, the only time I see an issue is when it is at idle. The only way we are going to find out is with an oil pressure gauge. Then we can get real results and figure out if the oil pump needs to be replaced or not. But for right now PhorB13 has his car and is driving it, I put 200 miles on his car personally with no hickups, it actually drove great.

If anyone has any insight please post, but I checked the cover and it is not cracked... I checked everything we could see by eye and everything checks out. The oil pressure should tell us what we need to know.

Sure, the front cover isn't cracked, but the oil pump gear that the pulley was being tightened down on probably is. There have been about five people who have tried this and posted asking why there is no oil pressure the past couple of months. I can't believe you are still driving the car right now with the light coming on. We all know that the light comes on WAAY too late, just because the light goes off, doesnt mean that you are getting enough oil pressure to keep everything lubed. When you replace the oil pump, I would go ahead and replace the rod bearings while I'm in there. I wouldnt trust them now.

Completely agree. You should know the oil light only comes on after a certain psi, at which point it is extremely low. If your oil pressure is that low, NO matter the reason, you have a major problem. If you have been running the motor you most deffinently need to check everything at this point.

Dudeman

Look the pump is damaged.

It is obvious that if the revs are up the light will not be on. This happens on any motor where the oil pump is failing.

Look a VE is about 25 psi at idle and 90-100 PSI on a full RPM pull when hot.

A VE has such a good pump that even if it is barely working it still will move more oil than a DE when running.

Lets consider this pump with a 2/3 fail rate in presure.

You would have 8 psi at idle ( light will come on with that ) and full throttle will be 35 PSI or so. So, yes if you drive the car the oil light will go off and the engine should still not eat a bearing.

The problem is at lower RPMs where the car usually stays it will eat a bearing.

The oil light is known as the dumby light. When you see it flickering shut of the motor. Yep it is dumby proof thats how easy it is.