Removing the oil sump screen. Bad idea?

[bluezerby]

I've got a 2001 S60 that has the oil pressure light coming on. I recently dropped the oil pan to clean out the sludge. I scraped the pan as well as soaked and scrubbed it with brake cleaner and engine cleaner. I got most of it cleaned up. After putting it all back together it worked fine for about 10 miles and then the light came on again. I dropped the pan and did another cleanout. After another test drive, the light came back on again. I drained the oil twice into a fine screen as well as screened it when putting it back into the engine. Doing so removed some fine particles. Test driving it again it worked for about 10 miles and the light came on again. I can get the light to go off immediately by turning off the car and having the engine oil backwash the sump screen.

I'm tempted to just remove the screen and let any residual particles flow through to the filter to be captured. Is this a bad idea? I don't want to have to drop the pan a 3rd time if it's not going to 100% solve the problem. If anything if works and I don't lockup the engine, I'll replace the sump with one with a screen from the junk yard.

[precopster]

I think you may be missing something there. When the pan was removed did you notice the O rings that help transport the oil to the pickup tube? They can crack and reduce oil pressure. The genuine O ring kit costs about $25 and is a no-brainer of you're going to all that trouble of dropping the pan. Certainly worth a try......

[bluezerby]

I forgot to mention in my original post. I replaced the two o-rings on the bottom of the engine block as well as the two o-rings/washers on both ends of the pickup tube. The old ones I took out were hard and broke when I took them out. I also sealed the oil pan with Volvo's genuine $40 anerobic (spelling?) sealer.

[oragex]

If the oil pressure was low for a while, I would definitely check by hand for play on the rod bearings. If one of them did lack lubrication, it may look more brown in color compared with the 4 others. If I remember, the 5th was more prone to this.

Without the screen, flakes can get into the oil pump, not sure how good it is. Was the screen 'sucked' and bent inside?

[abscate]

The crap the screen catches will kill the oil pump. My guess is you have a bad bearing clearance somewhere as root cause of low oil pressure.

Have you actually measured the oil pressure to rule out a bad sensor too?

[JRL]

There are 7 O-rings, 2 on the pan, 5 around the inside... ALL need to be replaced.
Also did you CAREFULLY check the plastic pick tubes from the pan? They are known to crack when taken apart to clean.
Sometimes these cracks are very fine and easy to miss

[bluezerby]

I forgot to mention before dropping the pan for the 2nd time, I replaced the oil pressure sensor. I replaced 6 o-rings. Two on the underside block, two in the oil pan connecting the tube that runs to from the oil cooler to the filter and two on the outside of the pan connecting the oil cooler. I didn't replace any that were behind the large hex nuts on the right side of the pan.

To me the feels and sounds like it's running fine. It seems like it gets starved for oil with the particles floating around and getting sucked up in the oil pickup tube. WHen I stop and it back drains it solves the problem temporarily. Does anyone know the flow of the oil. It looks like the flow might go from the pickup to the pump then to the top of the engine and then falls to the pan.

I'm not sure what JRL mean by plastic pick tubes.

[tryingbe]

Screen is not the problem. Sounds like abuse is.

It sounds to me the engine rarely got its oil change thus, it has serious oil sludge problem and is lacking oil pressure after the oil is warmed up.

I'd work on an engine replacement.

[Yawafari2007]

Any updates at all?

[abscate]

Any updates at all?

User inactive since 2018