Well I decided to take a road trip today with the girlfriend. I checked the oil and it was AOK. WELL 20km's away my check gauges light comes on. What now,(new altenator last week). **** I got no blasted oil pressure. So I pulls it over to check things out and she's not sounding to good. Gets out and she's just a drippin. Holy crap shut this P.O.S. off. Yup I blew the stupid high pressure oil lines.
$300.00 CDN for new ones.

These are oil cooler lines correct?
Is this a pain to change?

 

How far away from an oil change were you and what kind of filter did you have on it?

The lines aren't all that easy or really hard to change. Kind of an intermediate difficulty.

My grandfather's old s10 had this same thing happen. We cut off all of the hard lines to get rid of the factory rubber lines with their crappy crimp connections. We then deburred the lines and brazed on some -AN fittings to all of the lines we cut. Went down to the local farm hydraulics supply store and had some lines made up. IIRC, the entire repair cost less than $100 and I highly doubt that any factory replacements could outlast the repair we made.

That was around 8-10 years ago and last I knew, one of my cousins is still beating the crap out of it down in PA somewhere.

 

My question comes form your initial statement. " HIGH" pressure??? A hair over 60 (US) if ice cold and cranking? 40-45 if real healthy and warmed up? If you lost oil pressure completely, it should have shut of. If a 90deg v6.

Lines are manufactured for much higher pressure than your engine can give it. Many folks have regular clamps on oil lines and they work fine. Many lines are not much more than heater hose. Require routing that places them in protected area under hood. Many folks have tranny lines the same, simply clamped on. Most oil coolers, remote filters and tranny coolers.

Look at most of the aftermarket oil and tranny coolers at jegs or summit. Notice the fittings that require a simple hose and clamp?

No matter what anyone says, you simply had a failure of a piece of equipment. This was caused by something. Keeping an eye on things and looking for drips is important. If it was ready to "blow", it probably showed it.

Did it actually fail on a 'crimp'?? Did you look? My daughter had her car serviced at the local walmart and they left the oil plug lose. Lost most of the oil. It seems ok now, but probably wont be. Do you have any real nasty buddies? Did someone leave it lose?? Hit something underneath the car, on the way out, or recently? Was the line rubbing on anything?

Look for the real problem. The crimps do not fail often enough to call them names.

 

The crimps do have a tendancy to leak, but an all out failure is very rare.

 

I'm going to dig into it Today and find out exactly what let go. Every thing under the hood is oil soaked now. I do all my own work so I know everything was done right. never hit nothin, It just simply happened. Last week when I changed the alternator I looked over the oil lines and they looked OK other than dirty.

I will keep you's updated when I get it apart.

 

OK I found the problem. The oil lines coming from the oil filter location on the block let go. Just one of them. Rubber part blew right out of the crimp clamp. I think my buddy can fix it, He has a hydrolic business. I'm having troubles getting it un bolted from the block. Anyone know an easy way to do this, and what size the bolt actually is? It seems a bit rounded. 13m to big, 12m to small, 1/2inch to small. This one little bolt is holding me up.[:@]

 

I feel for you bud, I just changed the oil cooler lines last week on my 1998 2wd blazer. I used a 1\2 inch small socket and a wobble extension to get the nut off by the oil filter. The New lines were from DORMAN MFG Part#625-122 = 2WD. 50 minutes to complete the job on mine.

 

Use vise grips if you can get them in there. Good luck!

 

ha ha ha vise grips! not a chance. Barely get a hand up there lol. I finally got it out, now to figure out a repair for it.

 

Vice grips are a last resort thing. I'd rather go buy a new tool than face using vice grips. Since it blew that way, there may (MAY) even be an obstruction somewhere. I couldnt tell you which is the line that returns to oil filter or sends to cooler. Knowing this right now is a key piece of information in determining origen of possible failure. Other than crimp letting go.

Our fellow poster "swartlkk" has a really good possibility in the oil filter. If the design of the system is such that it filters AFTER it cools, this is even more possible. I dont think it is, but.. On the other hand; oil filter suddenly goes into bypass mode and pressure becomes a little higher??

Do not leave that filter on there.


Dont discount a true blockage at the cooler. Have you had any signs of oil pressure being different prior to problem? Higher resistance can cause both lower or higher pressure. Radiator has cooler in it, right? Thats how mine is anyway. Has the radiator been hit by a flying object in the oil cooler section? Many are constructed to force use of whole cooler and no by-pass is possible at the cooler core.

I dont see how this could have happened if you have air. The air conditioning in front of the radiator normally protects it real well. So largest percentage of a blockage is right under shroud??

I am basically saying that a VERY thorough look-see and perhaps a test of sorts needs to be done. I blow coolers out with air, but have not tried this on the factory style we are discussing.

Any trailer truck hydraulic repair facility can build you lines that will never let go for the life of that vehicle.

Just so you didnt get the wrong idea. Myself, I use stainless covered hoses for ALL water, gas, oil lines. Any flexible lines I install for replacement on mine are high pressure and stainless braid coverred. I do the same as our fellow poster and go to high pressure connectors wherever possible. AN connectors are so hard to find around here that I sometimes have to do the job once to get going and then again to finish it after orderring the parts. I go through the trouble anyway. I order brake component hoses before even beginning work on brakes.

The comments about heater hose and such are from what I see constantly being done all over.