u/Far_Interest8969

I have a 1994 c1500, single cab short bed. It’s pretty nice, but it definitely is old. 256k miles, most of the suspension/steering is shot and the undercarriage is so crusty dusty it makes me want to frame-off the whole thing and build it from the ground up.

It’s originally a tbi 350 setup, ran really really good for a tbi. Smoothest 350 I’ve ever owned.

I broke my oil pressure sensor doing a training op at tech school. It didn’t fully break, but after a while it actually blew out the little film piece inside and blew all the oil out. How it didn’t blow up? I don’t know, it happened right as I was pulling into the driveway.

Anyways, I took the fitting out of the block, got a new sensor, and put the new one on. I didn’t know what to use for thread sealing that brass fitting. The sensor side already had some thread sealer. So, I tried using permatex red.

At first it read oil pressure perfectly. On the drive back home (~15 mins) it slowly dropped until it showed 0 oil pressure at idle with “check gauges” light on. And would go up to 30 on revs. It wasn’t actually dropping oil pressure, so I thought the fitting was coming out because the sealant wasn’t holding it in.

I took it back out, and unsure what to use I put some permatex PTFE sealant. This is a thick paste. Apparently, I may have used too much or put it too low on the fitting threads/got some on the bottom by accident.

Because it ran fine, wasn’t leaking, but after ~2 minutes there was some seriously loud valvetrain noise, like lifter tick. I very clearly did not hear any knocking or bottom end noise, it was only the top driver side bank making clackety clackety noise. But it seemed like the bottom end hadn’t lost oil pressure.

Chances I cooked my motor? What should I do from here? Just 5.3 swap it and trash the 350?

I have a 1994 c1500, single cab short bed. It’s pretty nice, but it definitely is old. 256k miles, most of the suspension/steering is shot and the undercarriage is so crusty dusty it makes me want to frame-off the whole thing and build it from the ground up.

It’s originally a tbi 350 setup, ran really really good for a tbi. Smoothest 350 I’ve ever owned.

I broke my oil pressure sensor doing a training op at tech school. It didn’t fully break, but after a while it actually blew out the little film piece inside and blew all the oil out. How it didn’t blow up? I don’t know, it happened right as I was pulling into the driveway.

Anyways, I took the fitting out of the block, got a new sensor, and put the new one on. I didn’t know what to use for thread sealing that brass fitting. The sensor side already had some thread sealer. So, I tried using permatex red.

At first it read oil pressure perfectly. On the drive back home (~15 mins) it slowly dropped until it showed 0 oil pressure at idle with “check gauges” light on. And would go up to 30 on revs. It wasn’t actually dropping oil pressure, so I thought the fitting was coming out because the sealant wasn’t holding it in.

I took it back out, and unsure what to use I put some permatex PTFE sealant. This is a thick paste. Apparently, I may have used too much or put it too low on the fitting threads/got some on the bottom by accident.

Because it ran fine, wasn’t leaking, but after ~2 minutes there was some seriously loud valvetrain noise, like lifter tick. I very clearly did not hear any knocking or bottom end noise, it was only the top driver side bank making clackety clackety noise. But it seemed like the bottom end hadn’t lost oil pressure.

Chances I cooked my motor? What should I do from here? Just 5.3 swap it and trash the 350?