legacycentral bbs

Hey guys, I hope everyone is have a great weekend.

I have a 1992 Legacy SS with a manual swap. I bought the car a couple months ago. It's got a revtronix tune, a catless exhaust, and stock enginewise. After doing regular maintenance, oil change, wheel bearings, ball joints, etc., the car was running well.

However, things did not go as planned. On the way to work last week the lifters started chattering more than usual, loud enough to hear them over the engine, so I check the oil level which was clean and up to the correct level.

This week, I was on the way to work and I got the idiot light for low oil pressure. I immediately pulled over and shut it off, and proceeded to check oil level, which again, waw correct and clean. I then had it towed home and put it into my shop this weekend.

Here's what I thought it could be: Oil pick up is broken, oil leak, or oil pump?

I removed the oil pan after swearing and some tears, and the pick up pipe is in good order along the oil colour and there being no metal in the oil.

I then moved on to servicing the lifters, and after reading guides on here, I felt quite confident. Starting on the passenger side, I started removing the rocker arms and such and I then cleaned them and set them aside. I came back in the morning to see that they had been knocked over and the arms where all out of order.

Can anyone help me and tell me the order of the the arms? They have markings on them such as 4-1,4-2,4-3,4-4 but there's doubles. So I'm FUBAR.

Secondly, would cause low oil pressure? I don't want to have to pull everything and replace the oil pump just to have that not be issue.

Any feedback, suggestions, and ideas would be helpful.

Cheers, and have a great weekend.

Welcome to the BBS.

Regarding the low oil pressure, the oil pump has a backing plate with screws that are known to loosen over time. If these screws have backed off too much and the rear backing plate is not up against the pump then you will likely have low to no oil pressure. I'd personally pull the oil pump off. I don't know what else it would be unless there is a blockage of some kind.

There are pictures of oil pump and backing plate.

https://main.experiencetherave.com/suba ... eadwork/16


Regarding the rocker arms, see if the pictures in these links help.

https://main.experiencetherave.com/suba ... s/ej22t/09

https://main.experiencetherave.com/suba ... eadwork/18

Since there were no problems (noise) before the low oil pressure, I'd look at the bottom end or oil pump. Also less common, but I've seen the case half seals fail due to old age.

Easiest thing to do would be to swap the oil pump with a good known one, but everything else involves engine removal and disassembly (assuming a galley plug isn't puking or a rocker rail plug is gone).

Thanks for the help guys. I'll tackle it this evening, and I'll see what I find. Could it be the separator plate even though I'm not losing oil?

Are you talking about the backing plate on the oil pump or the separator plate on the back of the engine?

If you're talking about the backing plate then yes it could be as the oil recirculates in the pump and drains right back into the pan

I meant to say the backing plate for the oil pump. Thanks for the help!

So oil pump is all fixed, and I zero issues with that. Now I can't seem to get the passenger HLA arms to be in the right order. Any ideas?

So did you take the camshaft out they should only go in one way

This is the driver's side, but will be the same for either side.

https://main.experiencetherave.com/suba ... G_2632.JPG