Well,
I have another question regarding an oil pressure drop. We have been running the dart for about 500 miles and last evening while driving, the oil pressure gauge dropped to 40-42 pounds. It has been running at 50-52 hot since I put it back together. After one oil pump gear failure I didn't want another one. So my son shut it off and borrowed a car for the evening. About 3 hours later he went back to the car and started it and the oil pressure light immediately went out and the gauge went to 52 pounds.
So he drove it home and it seemed fine. I pulled the distributor and took a look at the cam gear(As much as you can see) and it looks to be wearing fine. So I put everything back together, ran it until hot, and it idles at 50-52#. So now what do I do? Is it possible something went wrong with the relief valve in the pump? Possibly a piece of dirt in the oil line to the gauge?
Just wondering what you guys think?

Rick

When is it due for an oil & filter change? Unless its fairly new oil/filter id change them both. ( I like to cut old filters open and see what kind of shape they were in) Ive had a similar problem where a plugging oil filter dropped my oil press 20 psi.

-Aaron

It is just about time for us to switch over to Synthetic oil. This oil & filter has approx. 400-500 miles on it. About 1000 miles on new rebuild.


Rick

A pressure drop can be caused by a number of things but bottomline is that 40 lbs is still plenty of pressure.

Run the oil change and look for metal in the drain oil and filter. Do this before you pour-in the good stuff. If you see anything that looks like bearing babbit you may want to refill with regular oil until you get to the source of that.

Best case, the current oil is "breaking down" viscosity wise, the oil pimp and bearings are "working-in" and the filter is "loading up". All this would cause a pressure drop. Worse case is a bearing problem, hence my "metal check" suggestion.

You are doing all the right things, keep an eye on it, when in doubt, stop, check, ask questions and fix any potential problem the right way.
DD

When I first fire a new engine, I get the timing "close" and then bring it up to about 2500 RPM for about 20 minutes (assuming it has a new cam). During the run-in period, we're obviously looking for temps,leaks, etc. When I shut it down, I change the oil immediately. My thought is any junk, assembly lube, etc left in the engine comes out ASAP. I run 1.5K before going to the synthetic.