Low Oil Pressure

[Harleyd]

Hello everyone,

I just did a reman motor from HD and now experencing oil light flickering at idle when oil temp is 200*+, I'm running 20/50. The dealer raised the idle and it seems ok now, but the dam thing sounds like a sewing machine. I had my old motor bearly running at idle and I never had an oil lite come on. Yes I changed the pressure switch and checked the oil screen.

I was going to consider a Pressure spring and gauge from E.R.T. products. Looks and sounds good. The gauge, fittings and springs cost $70 plus shipping. William Emmitt (owner) e-mailed me right back with answers to a couple of questions I had, I thought that was good customer service off the bat. Check out the web site and tell me what you all think. Has anyone heard of this company? They have been around since 91.???

http://www.ertproducts.com/

If anyone is interested, I will give a review on my reman experience in the near future. Right now I'm having a oil problem with the rocker box and don't know if it is the dealers fault or HD's. After that gets worked out I will review if anyone is interested. I will say that the engine runs real good with an EV38 cam in it. Don't know if there is much difference between the EV38 and EV27 though.

Well, thank you all in advance for your input.

[Dr.Hess]

Seems to me you just want to know right now if you have low oil pressure or if your sender is bad. I'm kinda thinking that you may have low oil pressure and that should be addressed. Telling for sure requires a real guage, but it doesn't have to be permanent. Just get a fitting to screw in the block and a mechanical guage and see what is going on at idle.

And what rocker box oil problems are you having? That could be related to your low oil pressure. I think something is going to have to come apart.

[hardluk1]

Put the gauge on first to see what your cold and hot oil pressure is. Evos with dino oil would flicker the oil light if in stop and go summer traffic. both my first and last evo which i now have will run 12 to 15 cold idle and 7 to 10 hot idle. with 30 + cold with rpm's up and 15 to 18 hot. Run a great synthetic ,thats not harleys products and keep your idle at 950 to 1050 ,also don;t lug the motor run at 2000 + It will help . I never saw a light flicker after changeing oil types . I have run amsoil for 26 years.

[Harleyd]

Thanks for the replies Hess & Hardluk,
Hess,
As I mentioned, I already replaced the sender and no change. I am going to get the gauge and was curious about the company who I wanted to buy the gauge and spring from, I like the mounting location.

The rocker box issue is oil leaking from between the top and center section of the rocker boxes. The boxes go on true, and after a couple of hundred miles of heat cycling they start leaking and when disassembled, the sealing surface is warped. Don't see how this can create low oil pressure if I even have low oil pressure, the gauge will tell the story.

Hardluk,
I am running HD360, this may be the issue with the oil light @ temp. Over the past 10 years I have run amsoil and never had this problem. I just want to ensure that I don't have a real problem and mask it with other products.



I enclosed E.R.T.'s reply to my e-mail below. Does his recommended oil pressure values sound good?

Thanks in advance for everyones input.

http://www.ertproducts.com/

"Thanks for your interest in our products! The Superpump-Kit is sold with all 3 springs. It is hard to say what each spring will do, due to the fact that every engine is different. What we are looking for is around 44p.s.i. @ cold start-up, 30-36 p.s.i. @ 55m.p.h. and up and at least 10 p.s.i.@ idle. Always start with the "blue" spring first, this product does work and we don't want you to have to much oil pressure! The "blue" spring is the weakest of the three, then "yellow" and with the "red" being the strongest. If you stay with these recommended oil pressures your engine will be fine! You must have an oil pressure gauge, and I can assure that you will be very pleased with our "Pro-Gauge""
Best Regards,
W.J. Emmitt
President
E.R.T. Products, Inc.

[claydbal]

Originally Posted by Harleyd

Hello everyone,

I just did a reman motor from HD and now experencing oil light flickering at idle when oil temp is 200*+, I'm running 20/50. The dealer raised the idle and it seems ok now, but the dam thing sounds like a sewing machine. I had my old motor bearly running at idle and I never had an oil lite come on.

this may be a clue. 950 or above for idle!

[Harleyd]

Claydbal,


"this may be a clue. 950 or above for idle!"

A clue indeed if the motor was idling slow to begin with. This issue did not begin untill I had roughly 1500 miles on the motor. The dealer set the idle to sewing machine spec when installed. I will say that I agree at this point in time with the 1000-1050 idle speed. I also belive that having my idle set low on my other motor could have been it's demise, rod bearing at 65K. I just don't want to be masking a real problem and get stuck with it after the warranty is up. I will be putting a tach on the motor and setting/verifying the idle. At the same time I want to verify the oil pressure at the correct rpm, which brings me to E.R.T. products.???

[Dr.Hess]

No, leaky rocker boxes aren't going to cause low oil pressure. At least you know oil is up there.

Personally, if it was my bike and I had low oil pressure at factory spec idle just after a total rebuild, I'd bring it back to the dealer and tell them to fix it and not take any crap from them. The book specifically says what oil pressure at idle should be. If you just had the motor done, it should have that oil pressure or something is wrong somewhere and they should fix it.

My guess: Piece of trash went through the oil pump after the rebuild, scoring it. New oil pump will probably fix it.

[deleontow]

I came across a possible fix for the EVO low oil presure. I have always had low oil presure issue with my bike 1998 Electra Gluide EFI. I had a lifter fail and installed new lifters, found the bike already had adjustable pushrods. Now when I installed the lifters, I did not properly adjust the push rods. Still having an oil presure issue, worse now, I removed the by pass spring and seat out of the oil pump, cleanded then, and made approximately a 1/8 of an inch spacer for the spring, used an old drill bit, cut the back smoth part off, cleanded it and installed it on top of the spring, now this increased my cold oil presure but the hot presure still seemed to crash, well now the story comes together, my lifters were very noisey due to improperly adjusted push rods, Now I correctly adjusted the push rods, and took her for a ride up the hill, at 3000 RPMs it held oil presure at 35 PSI and at idle hot it held at 8 - 10 PSI. This bike has never had good oil presure and normally after a short ride the hot oil presure would only be around 15 - 18 psi at 3000 RPMs. So two things to note, make a spring shim out of an old drill bit, used a cut off wheel to cut it, and make sure your lifters pushrods are adjusted correctly. BTW my bike sounded like a sewing machine also, untill I got the push rods adjusted.


David DeLeon