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I am fixing my Dads 1997 Ford Expedition with the Windsor 4.6L and 202,000 miles, If you would like to skip the back story go to paragraph 2 now. It is a very sentimental car to me and I want to fix it, however, I have been moved out of my Dads place for about a year and a half now and he has been the one driving it during that time period. Over that time he very seldom maintained the car, the car does consume oil (maybe a quart every 1,000-1,500 miles) so he would wait until it was very low then top of the oil. About 5 months ago, he bought another vehicle and stored the expedition on my property, there it sat for about 4 months and now I have gotten permission to work on the vehicle. I got it running and it is running fantastic, the A/C will still freeze you out!
The vehicle was running fine for a few trips around the block, a few trips to the auto store as well, so Then I figure it must be fine and it can go back out to my Dads for him to use, then on my way out ,maybe 2 miles from the house, I lose oil pressure. the lifters start clattering and I immediately shut it down and rolled into a 7/11 parking lot. The next day I get pulled back to the house, and I have kind of given up on it so I let it sit for about another month, tonight I went out started it up and it ran great for about 15 minutes, then slowly the lifters started to get louder and louder so I shut it down for about 5 seconds, started it up again and the lifter noise was gone! 10 more minutes go by and the same thing happened. by this time the engine was already at operating temp, It did this about 2 more times with a 5 second gap after the lifter noise started. I’m stumped!
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It sounds like a classic case of worn out crank and rod bearing surfaces that are worn to the point that the engine can no longer maintain oil pressure. The crank and rod journals are the first place the oil goes after leaving the pump and filter. If the bearing clearances are too wide, then there’s not enough oil pressure to make it up to the lifters, pushrods, and rockers. In your case, when the oil is cold, the viscosity is higher and it will pump up to the valve train. As the oil heats up, it looses viscosity and slips past the bearings.
You could drop the pan and Plastigage the rod and crank journals to see how much bearing wear you have, but honesty, I think you are ready for a crate engine or salvage engine.
+1 on the above comment.
A high mileage engine with neglected maintenance and allowed to run low on oil = great engine component wear = loss of oil pressure = even greater engine component wear and oil starvation and then total engine failure.
The engine is screwed unfortunately and would cost multiple times more to rebuild that unit than the vehicle is now worth.
however wouldn’t that mean as soon as the oil is hot, it will clatter and not have oil pressure even if I shut it down and restart it 5 seconds later?
Oil pressure issues aside, if the oil consumption is as high as you say it is, the engine needs to be torn down and inspected anyway.
Regarding the pressure issue, there’s a slim possibility that a piece of the foil covering an oil bottle spout came off the bottle and is floating around and intermittently restricting the oil path when the engine is running. I’ve seen this happen a few times, and you’d be surprised where these floaters can end up. It typically happens when the owner is prone to peeling back the foil cover, but doesn’t remove it entirely before jamming the bottle into the filler hole.
I never even thought out that, my dad might of put some oil in it and that could of happened, I just ran the car for about 30 minutes and nothing happened this time it ran fine with good oil pressure the entire time even after I put it in drive and had the A/C blasting, is there a chance the oil filter could cause issues on this too?
The way to know for sure what’s happening is to check the actual oil psi. I will also add that it’s important to use the correct viscosity oil. As many have pointed out, the bottom end is what dictates oil psi. If there’s a problem there, it will often cause a drop in oil psi.
More info on this issue here.
http://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/finding-and-fixing-leaks
Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.
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