I just hooked up a mechanical oil pressure gauge in my 88 F150 5.0/C6 tonight. I am not too impressed with the oil pressure, at idle when I got home it was showing, about 10psi. While driving at 60mph it was at 35psi. I just bought this about 2 weeks ago and it has 164,000KM on it. What are you guys running for PSI?

The engine sounds fine and does not knock at all when hot, just a little when it is cold and only for a short time. The 5.0 in my 63 Merc has atleast 32psi at idle when hot and almost 60psi at 60mph. I had an old 289 that was toast, it would idle quietly with 5psi. I swapped a new standard volume oil pump into the 289 and it brought the idle psi to 20-25lbs. I wonder if the plastic line to my gauge might be pinched or plugged with dirt, it was a hard spot to reach and thread the fitting in.

I am going to try the gauge from my 63 to see if it will read the same as the gauge that I have in the truck. If it does then I may have a 5.0 in need of an oil pump for a quick fix, or maybe a set of bearings. How hard is it to get the oil pan off? would i have to lift the engine some?
This is pretty typical of my luck, I buy the truck because it is in good shape, needs about $500 in parts to make it a lot tighter and now I might need to go into the friggin engine. I only paid $1900 Canadian for it, so I guess I should have expected it to **** me off in short order for that price . I have been picking away at the repairs every payday since I got it. I had planned to put a new fuel tank and sending unit on it next payday because I have a small leak in the tank. Sorry for the long post, just needed to vent.

 

bump

 

There are plenty of thread discussing how to get the pan off, and you DO have to lift the engine.

You can repair your gas tank by draining it, DRYING IT THOROUGHLY with a vacuum cleaner blowing into it for a few hours, cleaning ALL the rust off, and then using JB-Kwik to seal it.

 

As far as the tank goes, for $114 I am just going to replace it. I work in a shop where we certify highway petroleum tankers, so I could get it steamed and welded for free, but I would rather replace it now and never have to touch it again. I'm lucky, we do small automotive work too, for our big customers so we have one drive on car hoist. Gonna' roll some new main bearings in and replace the oil pump very soon, after I came off the highway this morning while driving home from the campground, I only had about 10psi of oil pressure at idle in gear, my other 5.0 has atleast 30psi at the same idle speed and temp.I knew I would have to lift the engine. About a month ago I had to do an oil pan on 2001 F-550 7.3L diesel. I had to remove the Turbo, piping, tranny and etc to lift it enough to get the pan out. What a PIA. What was Ford thinking?????

 

That anybody in there right mind would pull the engine to do that....... I replaced my oil pan with the engine in my van, if I have to do it again, I'm removing the engine.