Posted by Steve Kanavas on October 20, 2000 at 21:45:01:
In Reply to: Low Oil Pressure posted by J.D. Myers on October 20, 2000 at 13:36:46:
The easiest thing to do is to just feed it a new oil pump. About forty odd bucks at NAPA. 1 hours labor and you'll know if it was a worn pump.
* Just be sure to fill the pump with oil and turn it to get the air out before you slap it on the engine. That way it should prime itself nicely.
If it's been driven regularly with oil changes, and you get up to 40 ish psi when running, I doubt if you have serious crud buildup on the pickup screen. As the revs rise, so does the flow through the oiling system. If you have good pressure, ya gots good flow.. Goes to show ya that these things have undersized oil pumps.
My '48 has .003 clearance on the mains/rods (no idea as to cam bearing clearance) and idles with very low pressure when hot on 10w40. Running 20w50 helped a lot.
sak