I have a nearly dead 96 s10 2.2L truck with little oil pressure at idle. Was driving fine then at least one lifter collapsed, and it runs on 3 cylinders or so now.
Friend has the same thing in a 98, but his is still running but has very low oil pressure showing at idle
From what i can determine, it was common to have cam bearings wear on these and then the oil pressure went down the tubes.
My question to anyone who as done these, can you just replace the cam bearings, or does it usual take the cam out too so it has to be replaced?
Never heard that about the cam, just that some suffered head gasket leaks. Junked my '90 Corisca about a month ago because of rust, but the 2.2 (throttle body injection) was running fine. Had about 120k miles, nearly all city driving. No sense not putting in a new cam if you do cam bearings. But wait, last time I rebuilt an engine the new cam for the 352 was 30 bucks. Rockauto has yours for $240.79. So you could have a shop micrometer yours to see if it's good. You have to do that no matter what stories you hear about the motor. The shop might match the new bearing size to cam wear. That's what the shop I used did with the 352 crank bearings after they polished the crank. Sold me different sized bearing than the originals. Almost certainly you have to pull the engine to do the bearings. Rebuilt 2.2's run $12-1500 shipped. I'd go that route if I wanted to keep the truck. But that's a stretch when you might get a truck with a good engine for a bit more money and avoid all that work. And look at the rebuilt warrantee if you go that route. I bought a van that had a rebuilt 350 in it. Saw the rebuild sticker when crawling under the engine doing some work on it. Major rebuilder, but I can't recall the name. Though I got my money out of the van, that engine developed valve problems and a rod knock after I put about 60k miles on it. Might just be natural for that engine made in 1978, and nothing negative about the rebuilder. The 2.2 is newer and probably more reliable. The older stuff was junk in comparison to the newer, despite old fogies waxing nostalgic. Maybe you can do just the cam bearings and get away with a good outcome worth the labor, but I doubt it. If you do it, let us know so we can congratulate you.
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