I'm just wondering what symptoms should I look for if the Oil Metering Pump goes bad? How exactly does the OMP go bad, what happens?

 

Well, I don't exactly know what happens to it....

Although, the biggest clue should be that bright yellow warning light that means "check engine." It should register as a fault in the onboard computer system.

And by the way.... its EXPENSIVE !!!!!!!

 

89+ ones are EXPENSIVE. but what happens is eventually more expensive it means new motor

 

check your oil level regularly to see if the level is going down, cause you know it burns it. of course you knew that! so if the oil level stays the same then its not getting injected into the engine. if you drive the car soft though i dont think alot of oil gets injected into the combustion. the harder you drive the more the omp sends into the combustion chamber i think. if i was you id use some premix for added safety. check your ecu codes every now and then.

you have a 3rd gen. i see, sweet, my pops has one. he just got a rebuilt/street ported motor. the 3rd gens. have a much better engine where it doesnt need as much oil as the tII. less oil is used, i believe there's 2 lines instead of the tII's 4.

anyways if your that worried check the lines to make sure they are flowing as well.

symptoms:
1. oil level stays the same
2. oil leaking by the omp
3. broken omp lines

cant think of anymore

 

I drove my '80 for 2000 miles before I realized the OMP was inoperative. Hmm, wonder why it doesn't use any oil... So I started premixing oil and the engine ran great for another 28,000mi, at which point I drove it long distance with snow blocking the airflow to the oil cooler, cooking the oil. Used over 3 quarts in a weekend. Still ran great, though. (It was cold enough that the radiator didn't need airflow - the heat loss through the heater is more than enough)

A friend of mine used to work at a Mazda dealer and said the cars would come in all the time with no compression - the OMPs would fail and eventually they'd lose compression to the point where they wouldn't start. Dump a capful of oil down each intake bore and BAROOM!!! they'd fire right up and run great again. Fix the OMP and send 'er back out again!

 

Total failure of the OMP seems to be quite rare on 3rd gens, I think the common failure mode is just a slow and annoying leak.

 

let me get this straigh, if youre omp goes(i know i got the code out) youre still good if you havent done damage to the engine?

 

if you get the OMP working that is.

BTW there are enough used OMPs out there that they are not that expensive used (about $100). They cost way more than that new.

Has anyone had the small leak by the OMP and fixed it? Was it just a bad banjo bolt, or did the OMP itelf go? I have a small leak there and it looks like the bolt. I have a spare pump, but the difference between replacing a banjo bolt and replacing the whole OMP is pretty large, since access to the OMP is an issue.

-Erik