Help! Oil pressure issues 2005 Tacoma

Help!

I just recently purchased a 2007 Tacoma (2.7L 4 cylinder, 5 speed manual, access cab, 6 foot bed) and I am having some wierd issues with my oil pressure.

When I first start the truck after sitting all night the oil pressure is around 70 to 78 PSI. After warming up it drops down to around 30 to 38 PSI.

When I drove it for an extended period of time (30 min or so) my oil pressure drops down to 7 PSI or lower. Sometimes it even gets to 3 or 2 which will cause the oil light to flicker.

I've had a mechanical oil pressure gauge hooked up and it confirms the aftermarket is reading accurately and that we are loosing pressure somewhere. The shop couldn't replicate the issue after letting it sit for 3 hours at idle and driving it around for a bit.

I'm not sure of this is the oil pressure sensor or the actual oil pump. I did an oil change while I was there with factory oil filter and recomended oil.

Should I take this to the Toyota dealership to have them diagnose the issue further??
Any help, ideas, suggestions are greatly appreciated

 

Those statements seem to be contradictory. How can they verify but not replicate?

 

I've worked on Toyotas for a long time, and my foreman got me with this a long time ago.

It's likely a plugged pickup for the oil pump. I've chased this around like an idiot only to find a clogged screen and a smug boss smiling at me.

Start with this, finding an internal leak is nearly impossible without running it with no pan or valve cover.

 

I’d start with the pick up screen/tube.

 

I saw it on a camary the guy never changed the oil in 30k miles sludged the whole engine up and it was rod knocking like a mother. You could run the engine without the oil press sensor in it and nothing would come out. Took the valve cover off and had to dig to find the camshafts.

 

You have had leaking injectors deluiting your oil,, your main bearing are most likely toast, look for gold glitter in your oil at oil change, happened to me.

 

Any idea on how much it would cost to have the pick up screen looked at? Will they need to take apart the engine to do this?

I don't want to have to throw a ton of money into diagnostics if I'm just going to have to rebuild the engine and replace the oil pump.

 

Drop the oil pan. Also be a good idea to pull the valve cover and check to see if the top end is really sludgy as well

 

You should be able tell just by removing the oil cap to see if there’s sludge. If there is that could be your problem.