1997 Sentra cuts off, no restart; HELP!!!!

[highvoltage_ga16det]

I was leaving work just like any other day. I drive about 1.3 miles when I had to stop for a car making a left hand turn. I clutched in, pressed the brakes and stopped. When I started to take off, after the clutch was fully engaged, I pressed the gas(travelling about 15 mph) and there was a noise as though I ran over some thing and I felt it in my feet. The car instantly started to loose power as though someone put a plastic bag over the intake. And the oil pressure light came on and the car slowed to a stop. I tried to crank it back up once with no success. There were no indications of a problem before it happened. no lights. no sounds. no feelings. To me it seem as though something catastrophic happened; rod broke, oil pump shattered, rotor in distributor broke (but why the oil light only). Any help would be appreciated.

[nametakennow]

Did you see a big oil spot?

[Twilight sentra tuner]

sounds like a perfect " Life comes at you fast" commercial.

sounds like an oil pressure problem. thats usually why the light will come on. more than likely low oil presure which means you've got a leak somewhere. the sudden symptoms sound like ur oil pump is broke. hopefully u didn't have any internal damages. it probably stopped because there was no lubrication. basically metal to metal. you would definately feel that too if this is the case.

and it won't restart because there is no lubrication. i wouldn't doubt that ur bearing inserts melted to ur main bearings. that would prevent it from turning over at all.

but this is just my opinion. hopefully i'm wrong and it's not anything serious.

[nametakennow]

If the oil really was/is gone and you tried to crank the car, the bearings are shot at the least. You may have all out cold-welded the pistons to the cylinder walls as it ground to a stop.

The general rule of thumb is that once the oil light is on, the engine is already pretty much irreparable unless you're darn lucky.

Anyway, if there was an oil spot, then that thump was something coming off/the oil pan taking a dump/whatever other means of oil taking a vacation. If not, then pump failure is more likely.

Either way, you should have cut it as soon as you noticed anything beyond the thump. Your engine is probably toast.

[highvoltage_ga16det]

No oil spot. no broken part external.

[highvoltage_ga16det]

When it stopped, it was not a sudden stop, it was a drop from 4 to 2 cylinder no spark slow to a stop at idle stop. and it was barely at operation temp..

[highvoltage_ga16det]

Checked oil as soon as I popped the hood; Still full with synthetic. And clean, not milky.

[highvoltage_ga16det]

Will tow car from work tomorrow to crack the block open. Will keep you all up to date.

[nametakennow]

Even if oil is still in the pan (ie - dipstick reads fine), that doesn't mean there is oil in the engine. The oil light goes off as a function of what's going on with the pump, so if your pump failed then you'd grind to a stop, have the light pop up, and not be able to restart.