I was driving today and to my surprise and horror noticed that my oil pressure gauge was in red. I stopped the car immediately and checked if I had oil. I did. Oil level was normal. Still the oil pressure indicated red while idling. When stepping on the gas the pressure rose to a maximum of about 20-25. Much less than normal. Could my oil pump be bad. I though they never broke down. What else could it be?. If the oil pump is deffective, could I take the oil pan from underneath without taking the engine out in order to reach in and replace the old oil pump?. This had never happened before. Anyway, I always thought that if the oil pressure drops to zero the engine will automatically quit. This happened to me once in my other Camaro after hitting a rock which made a whole in my oil filter. Any suggestions?.

 

You're right, oil pumps hardly ever fail. Especially not such that they work but have low pressure.

If the engine was not in any obvious low oil pressure distress - ticking lifters, scraping noises, generally sounding like it had no lube - there probably isn't anything wrong with the oil pressure.

Before getting all excited about internal engine parts, remember that the gauge system in these cars isn't particularly robust. The sending units fail frequently. First thing I'd suggest is a new one of those. It's about $15, takes about 5 minutes to replace, and has about a 90% chance or better of fixing the gauge indication.