Another low oil pressure thread

[Bolted to Floor]

Close to 500 miles on the motor now. With the first oil pump in this motor, it was close to 50 cold and hovered just below the 12.5 mark at 900 RPM. Gauge is marked 0/25/50/75/100 with 1/8 markings. I didn’t like it. Read through here here and learned about the Melling M57B and bought one from POPS. Now, cold oil pressure is closer to 70. Hot oil pressure has not changed. Hot oil pressure does climb with RPM.

Machine shop had mains at .002”. Rods are at .0025”. Rocker arms are resized with bronze bushings from Rocker Arms Unlimited with matching shafts. Oil to the heads is restricted, .070, I think. Thrust and rod side clearance are within spec. Block got typical oil mods and screw in gallery plugs.

Since the front seal is leaking, figured I would pull the distributor and spin the oil pump to see if anything look out of place. I can see the screw in plug behind the distributor. Spinning the oil pump, I get a stream of oil out of that plug!! Is that supposed to be that way?? It looks like it’s squirting a stream at the distributor gear.

Here is a video.
https://youtu.be/I2FNUaNudns


Thanks for looking.

Edit to add engine oil - VR1 10W-30

[jayb]

It is not supposed to be that way.  Hole in the plug maybe?  It doesn't have one of those little dribble valves in the plug, does it? 

[1967FEGT]

I have seen a couple of engines with the galley plug drilled to lubricate the distributor drive gears..  It's not necessary and would bleed off oil pressure.
I have all the mods done to my engine as well with the rocker shaft supply at .070.
I have a POP blueprinted high volume pump. I have 82psi cold @ 1500.  Hot is 21 PSI idle at 900 and 60 psi at 3000 rpm.
I run two quarts of 20-50 with 4.5 quarts of 10-30 VR-1

[blykins]

That's a Chevy trick.  They drill the front galley plugs to pee on the timing set and thrust button.  Not needed on an FE. 

[blykins]

BTW, you should see oil down by the distributor shaft hole and that's normal.  There's a feed from behind the front cam bearing that oils the distributor.  However, that stream of oil shooting out should not be there.

[My427stang]

Agree with all, and with the clearances you have, you should have good oil pressure, assuming cam bearing clearance is good. That front plug can be done in the car, although you may swear about it and will need to be careful not to drop it inside.

However, that M57B won't help idle oil pressure either, as I understand, it's basically a standard pump with a HV spring (or close to it).  The bigger gears of the HV pump typically give better idle oil pressure and the spring determines the peak, so it did exactly what is expected.

Last thing I would bring up is the oil mods, in some cases, you can break through if you open up the primary galley out of the pump into the block, it'd likely be worse that you are seeing, but I have stopped doing it. I'd start with that dribble valve and then see where you are

[Bolted to Floor]

Thanks guys. I will have that plug pulled and replaced this weekend and report back.

[Falcon67]

My 351Cs run an Melling HV pump and clearances run in the 2.00+ range mains and rods.  Typical pressure is around 70 cold with 10w-30 and in the 30 range hot.  That is measured at the front above the oil filter, so close to pump output.  IMHO that pin hole oil squirt isn't the issue.  You may have a gauge problem.  I find it hard to think about how you'd get from 70 PSI cold to 12.5, if I'm reading the post correctly.  And not having any change with RPM.  On a super hot day here I can be 30 or below hot after a couple of runs but it's go right to 55~60 at 2000 RPM. 

[Bolted to Floor]

I'm running VR1 10W-30 oil, edit above top add.


I called the machine shop on Friday to ask about the hole in the plug. He tells me this was a practice he started in the last year or two from a couple of FE’s with noisy lifters.

The theory was air trapped at the end of the lifter bores. The cure was was grinding a shallow path in each lifter bore connecting the galleries. Then he drilled a the hole (.041") in the plug for the drivers side and the cam retainer bolt on the passenger side. That solved his noisy lifter problem.

After taking some time to think about it, if air is trapped....its at the end lifter on each gallery. This could help the front, but nothing gets done for the back.

For such a small hole, it sure shoots a stream of oil.

As a precaution, I have another gauge coming to verify the one I have is accurate.

With what Chris is saying, if one pin hole isn't the issue, maybe 2 could be??? I hate to pull this thing back out to dissect it.

Using a battery drill and a gauge, I will try to see if there is a difference on the pressure from having the holes to blocking them.

With the two streams of oil shooting forward, this could be the reason my front seal started leaking too.

Thanks for the feedback. I will come back with more info when I have it.

[blykins]

I'm running VR1 10W-30 oil, edit above top add.


I called the machine shop on Friday to ask about the hole in the plug. He tells me this was a practice he started in the last year or two from a couple of FE’s with noisy lifters.

The theory was air trapped at the end of the lifter bores. The cure was was grinding a shallow path in each lifter bore connecting the galleries. Then he drilled a the hole (.041") in the plug for the drivers side and the cam retainer bolt on the passenger side. That solved his noisy lifter problem.

After taking some time to think about it, if air is trapped....its at the end lifter on each gallery. This could help the front, but nothing gets done for the back.

For such a small hole, it sure shoots a stream of oil.

As a precaution, I have another gauge coming to verify the one I have is accurate.

With what Chris is saying, if one pin hole isn't the issue, maybe 2 could be??? I hate to pull this thing back out to dissect it.

Using a battery drill and a gauge, I will try to see if there is a difference on the pressure from having the holes to blocking them.

With the two streams of oil shooting forward, this could be the reason my front seal started leaking too.

Thanks for the feedback. I will come back with more info when I have it.

He had some bad lifters.  What he did was completely unnecessary and is certainly bleeding off oil pressure.  I have never cut any grooves in any lifter bores and have never drilled the front plug. 

[WConley]

I'm running VR1 10W-30 oil, edit above top add.


I called the machine shop on Friday to ask about the hole in the plug. He tells me this was a practice he started in the last year or two from a couple of FE’s with noisy lifters.

The theory was air trapped at the end of the lifter bores. The cure was was grinding a shallow path in each lifter bore connecting the galleries. Then he drilled a the hole (.041") in the plug for the drivers side and the cam retainer bolt on the passenger side. That solved his noisy lifter problem.

After taking some time to think about it, if air is trapped....its at the end lifter on each gallery. This could help the front, but nothing gets done for the back.

For such a small hole, it sure shoots a stream of oil.

As a precaution, I have another gauge coming to verify the one I have is accurate.

With what Chris is saying, if one pin hole isn't the issue, maybe 2 could be??? I hate to pull this thing back out to dissect it.

Using a battery drill and a gauge, I will try to see if there is a difference on the pressure from having the holes to blocking them.

With the two streams of oil shooting forward, this could be the reason my front seal started leaking too.

Thanks for the feedback. I will come back with more info when I have it.

He had some bad lifters.  What he did was completely unnecessary and is certainly bleeding off oil pressure.  I have never cut any grooves in any lifter bores and have never drilled the front plug.

    Grinding slots in the lifter bores is a great way to bleed oil pressure!  Look for big streams shooting up into the lifter valley when you're spinning it with the drill.  Some people...  If it was necessary Ford would have done it in the design.

[chris401]

Original press in oil galley plugs had a bleeder plug behind the timing chain. May not have been all years but it was done at Ford for a while. I drilled one in an oil modification I did. I do not recall any pressure difference at the gauge when I changed it. I reinstalled it with the following cam swap. May or may not make a difference but at $75 timing chain I want to get as many miles as possible.

EDIT: This was in a 66 block. I have seen it in later untouched engines but not in one that was rebuilt at some point. Those had standard plugs throughout. Seems the stock bleeder plug was also shown in either Steve Christ book or some FPP documents I downloaded. Factory placement is behind the chain, not the distributor gear.

[wayne]

Time to find a new shop thats a old bbc trick i would run a hv oil pump now you can bleed a lot from the lifter bores.A shop should ask be fore they start grinding on your block and let you say ok or not.

[Rory428]

Agree with Chris, I have see plenty of early FEs with a "piddle valve" oil gallery plug in the front. My understanding was that it was for helping to cure noisy hydraulic lifters due trapped air. That said, I have had plenty of FEs with hydraulic lifters and solid oil plugs, and I can`t say I ever noticed any noise like that. Even still, that seems like quite a differance in hot and cold oil pressure to me. I have had old FEs with lots of miles that had hardly any oil pressure at idle, that ran like that for years, but on a fresh engine, 12psi at idle is lower than I would be happy with, at least assuming those are the actual bearing clearances. It may well run for years like that , but I would consider trying another oil pressure gauge, just to be sure.

[rockhouse66]

I can't imagine any lifter/bore fit that would hold air pressure of 50 PSI!  That's the only way you could have trapped air.