Aight guys, i am looking at buying this 88 (i think 88) iroc-z vert..guy is giving me an awesome price on it, but says that the oil pump needs to be changed. How hard is it to change an oil pump on thirdgens? without a cherry picker and engine hoist...

 

Very difficult. The engine needs to be raised enough to remove the oil pan. In a Corvette, it's cake. In a ThirdGen, it's a lotta work.

 

you might get lucky and it need a oil sender and not a pump, on the other hand it might need a complete engine

 

Yup...why does he say it needs a pump replacement? Making knocking noise, metal in the oil, or just low gauge reading?

 

i asked him, and he said that he opened the oil cap on the valve cover and there was no oil in there -shrugs-

 

Maybe it just needs oil... hahah!

First, it probably needs a better owner!

I'd inspect that car a lot closer if I were you. Unless you plan on rebuilding the engine anyway. If you're asking about changing an oil pump, I'm guessing that a rebuild isn't your immediate plan.

 

if that's all he's basing the bad oil pump on i don't think you have a problem

 

I don't know. If someone thinks or knows that an engine doesn't have any oil in it, and concludes that the problem is a faulty oil pump, I wouldn't trust this person a whole lot.

Better find out more.

 

Oil pumps don't just up and fail. The only way is if the plastic collar on the shaft breaks. They don't wear out.

If the PO thinks it needs an oil pump because the gauge reads low, and it really is reading low, I'd start with a new sending unit.

If that doesn't fix it, it needs bearings... probably wiped out from running with no oil. An oil pump won't fix that.

Personally, if the price is good enough, I'd buy it anyway if it's a nice car, because it's a hell of alot cheaper and easier to rebuild a motor than it is to rebuild a whole worn-out car.

I'd be inclined to think that if you ask the right questions you'll find that he ran it low of oil, it started knocking, he put oil in it, now the oil pressure is low, and he's trying to dump it in a hurry because he knows it's about to blow up, that's why the price is so ,and he's trying to pump sunshine up your bodily orifices so you'll help him take his known destroyed car off his hands. And furthermore, a month or 2 on down the road when it blows up, he'll try telling you "Well it ran fine when I last saw it".

Never believe a single word out of the mouth of a used car seller, unless you can verify it yourself independently.

 

Yeah, gotta figure there's a reason why he's getting rid of it... It sounds already by his response to your question that he might be the sort to carelessly run a motor out of oil ("I thought you were supposed to change it at 30,000, not 3,000??" you know the type! )... Either that, or his oil pressure sender WAS bad before, and he looked in the valve cover and saw no oil in there, and decided that it was low on oil and filled it up to the top ("I thought 15 quarts was a lot, but oh well??")... Then things got really ugly, he drained the oil back out, concluded that the pump was bad, and figured he should sell quick!!

But I agree with RB, if the rest of the car is in good shape, get it and then build a motor you can trust!

 

i'm sorry, i forgot to add in the rest of what he told me due to lack of sleep at the time of posting, he thinks it's the oil pump because he has to give it 18 volts instead of the normal 12 i think it is, to turn the crank...so, that is why he concluded on the oil pump

 

and he isn't the orginal owner, he bought the car on terms from the orginal owner that it was an electral problem, he checked the electric system and it was ok...and i really don't have the time or money to build up a good reliable engine for it at the time, pretty much just lookin for something i know will run till i can get the cash to build up my engine

 

The oil pump isn't electric. There is no such thing as some 18V battery that will fit that car and work with the car's charging system.

The guy is lying. It doesn't matter how many owners the car has had, he's lying. That bit about the 18V is some of the funniest BS I've ever heard of coming out of the mouth of a used car salesman. The interesting thing about people who lie, is that each lie breeds the necessity to tell more lies; so a little lie at first soon snowballs into an impossible tall tale like this. Of course, it may not be funny to you, since you're the one being lied to.

The motor is no good and he knows it and he's trying to bamboozle you into buying the car anyway. The motor is toast. If you buy the car, then whether you currently intend to do so or not, you will be replacing the motor, and soon. Like when the gear lube that's in it to keep it from knocking all burns up and you drain what's left of it and put oil in it, and then it REALLY knocks.

If you have no time or money to replace the motor, don't buy the car. It's that simple.

 

Then this car fails your criteria...move on to something else.

Here's this guy's logic:
It won't crank with 12 VDC
I have to somehow feed it 18 VDC to do it
Therefore the oil pump is bad

That's pretty good fiction!!