New 390 with very low oil pressure

[northern 7.3]

and also the head bolts block off half of the drain back holes

[dodmort]

can i suggest that you check or remember if the gasket between the oil pick up tube and the pump body has a gasket in it and is flush or is machined flat...
..
at least you dont have to pull the engine to check it.

[bigblockford_390]

Originally Posted by Dino@his Dad's

JeffBBF390, if you didn't fix the oil passages, you goofed already. If your machinist didn't fix them for you, or at least ask you if you wanted it done, he shouldn't be working on an FE. That said, lots of FEs have run lots of miles with the standard setup. It is just that it is not as nice as it could have been with just a little effort. First, I would check to be certain that all of the plugs are in the ends of their passages .....you said you got the one in front and the three in the back, and that the ones in the valley never came out.....but what about the one behind the dizzy ? That one is easily missed by those not familiar with FEs ( your machinist, maybe ? ). I like to drill a hole, .030 or so, in that one to spray oil onto the dizzy gears. But before you do alot of worrying about the pressure, get yourself a known to be accurate mechanical gauge and recheck the pressure. The first gauge may not be telling you the truth, and you might be worried about the pressure for nothing. You should be more worried, at this point, about the oil you are useing. Whose 30 weight is it ? more than 95 % of the oil currently being sold is not good enough for breakin on a flat tappet cam.

That is a good question about the one behind the dizzy. I know the machine shop pulled 4 plugs out and handed me them when I picked the engine up and gave me 4 new plugs. I put them back in with loc-tite to keep them place and keep them sealed up. This was a basic engine rebuild as it is now back on our farm doing farm chores for my dad. All I had the machine shop do was hot tank the block to clean it up, and make sure there was nothing wrong with the block. I honed the cylinders to put the cross hatch back in and then went back together with the engine.

The 30W oil was Napa branded as I purchase most of my auto parts from them. I have used a known good gauge, I work as a diesel tech for 7 years prior to my current job and have a well stocked supply of tools. The mechanical gauge was more positive than the stock Ford gauge, as I know it had oil pressure with the mechanical gauge but the Ford piece looks too low.

At this point I feel ok with the engine as it has a a good amount of miles on it and will be used at low RPM's on the farm.

The more I think about it the more I think the oil pump is the problem. But I will continue to monitor the engine via my dad and see what I need to do as time goes by.

Jeff

[iggybob44]

I seem to be getting similar oil pressure #'s to what 390428cjt has listed,both at idle and cruise. I need to qualify this by admitting,ive got no idea what i actually have under the beautiful blue engine paint,other than its an FE engine! previous owner said it had 500 miles since rebuild(taken with sodium chloride,in granular form),said it was a 390(more sodium). if it has indeed been recently rebuilt,only the shop likely knows what components were used.