My boyfriend has an '89 Aerostar, 3.0L. Recently, the oil pressure is shown as being kinda low, but still in the normal range, barely. The check engine light hasn't come on at all. After driving for a while, there has been a kind of thumping noise from somewhere in the engine on the passenger side. Today it started with just being able to feel it under my feet while waiting for him to come back out of a store. He opened the hood to check it out he heard gurgling from one of the hoses. The noise stopped quickly and when he restarted the van everything seemed ok, except the oil pressure still read really low. It has run fine the rest of the day with no more noises from the engine. It also seems the catalytic converter is going, I don't think that has anything to do with the oil pressure, but I don't know anything about cars Does anyone have any suggestions on what to look at first? This is only the second time it made noise, the first time it didn't do it till the van was shut off and it was louder that time, but only lasted for a few seconds and the same thing happened with noise from the hose. We know it needs a new water pump, it leaks, could this have something to do with what's happening now?

Any suggestions would be great.

 

Sounds like the engines trying to tell you something, the bearings are probably wafer thin and need replacing but if the water pump is on it's last legs then that could be the gurgling noise due to hot spot pressure build up with poor circulation, the oil pressure and leak mean the motor is probably due to be pullen, I've not looked to hard at clearences but if you could get the sump off ion situ then you could change the bearings in a few hours. And the Water pump should be done to prevent any failures elsewhere before it goes and overheats.

 

What bearings are you referring to? He just checked for any wobble in the shaft for the water pump bearings, and there isn't any movement. He was definitely shaking it hard enough to see, since he shook the whole van when he did it. He checked that way because that's how AllDataDIY said to check them. This van only has 77,200 miles on it and aside from the leaky water pump (it's not a very bad leak) was working great untill the oil pressure started to show up kinda low. At first, he added more oil to it since it was low, and the pressure went back up for a while. It just had an oil change and the pressure is a little better, but still lower than it used to be.

 

txf75:

Try replacing the oil pressure sending unit at the back of the engine. And make sure you get the right one.

 

Ok. Would that cause the pressure to drop as the van warms up? He noticed it did that today, not sure if it always does that.

 

As the oil warms up it becomes thinner.

I had a bad sender on an 89 I rebuilt with a new oil pump. I went to NAPA to get another one and it was bigger than the one on it. I asked if it was the right one they said yes. I put it on and the oil pressure was lower than with the old one. Went to kragens and got one and it was the same one/size as the one that was on it. I put that one on and the oil pressure stays over half way always. The first one I got was for a 289/302 size engine. It worked great on my son's 67 Mustang.