Hello, I have a 1971 Scamp that I recently found in a "barn" (small garage) as part of an estate sale in Brooklyn, NY. The last time it was on the road, according to documents, was 23 years ago.
The oil light is coming on and I'm trying to figure out if I have a big problem.
I brought it back to life and she runs great for the most part. Part of "bringing it back to life" was of course changing the 23+ year old oil and oil filter. The filter was seized to the oil pump so badly that I had to get a strap wrench and apply lots of torque to get it off.
I have been tooling around a bit in it, and noticed that on start-up, the oil light was coming on and going away after about 15-30 seconds.
Then I decided to take it for a longer drive, and after about 30 minutes of driving, the oil light was coming on at every stop sign. I live in the outer boroughs of NYC, so there are a lot of stop signs. Once I picked up revs, the oil light would turn off. This freaked me out so I drove back home. As I was driving home, the oil light came on more and more, and higher and higher rpms were needed to keep the red light off.
So today, I decided to try and hook up a mechanical gauge to get an actual read on my PSI. The idiot light sending unit was frozen on there pretty bad. It also looks to be a lot larger than the 1.8" NPT I was expecting. The sending unit doesnt want to come off and is right now soaking with PB Blaster. Curious, is there anywhere else to hook up the mechanical oil gauge?
But I noticed something really weird. In the nipple that the oil filter screws, there appeared to be a piece of debris sitting on top of the spring. I thought maybe this was the source of my problem. I picked up the piece of debris, and it looked like a mechanical part. What is this thing? Do I need to put in a new oil pump? Can I do so with the engine in the car? See photos...
Thanks!
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