So last weekend I finished installing my engine I have been building for almost 2 years. It has been running great with the exception of dialing my tunes a little more but Jody has been great with that. At about 450 miles on the motor I noticed my check gauge light came on and my oil pressure dropped then would come back. Then the next day it dropped and didn't come back. Truck still ran, no noises seemed as if nothing was wrong. Swapped in a new sensor and nothing. I put a mechanical gauge on the oil cooler and I have about 5 psi at idle and 50 psi at 3300rpm. I then decided to drop my oil cooler and put in my by pass valve from my other motor and a new motorcraft oil filter with no change in pressure. My lpop is brand new motorcraft with cover as well as a new timing cover. All 4 of my lifter oil galley plugs are new installed by my machine shop. My piston cooling jets are tig welded and since the machine shop assembled my short block I asked them to loctite those bolts( I really hope they did). I installed my relief valve on the front of the block my self so I know thats in there. With my t500 I can still build 3200psi hpo. Also my start ups are instant, no delay what so ever. I'm assuming I have the volume just not the pressure. I drained the oil today and there is no sign of any metal(verified with magnet) also looked around the pan with a bore scope but didnt see much. Before I go ahead and pull this motor back out does anyone have any thoughts?

 

any ideas anyone?

 

What is the state of your low pressure oil pump? Is it the old pump or did you put in a new pump? If you replaced the new pump, is it aftermarket or OEM?

 

Stated in original post it was new motorcraft pump.

I know txdoug was having issues after rebuilding the oil cooler with not getting pressure at idle on the stock gauge. Changing sensors didn't help. It ended up being something stuck in the oil cooler. I'll see if I can find that thread and refresh on the results.

 

Might check the relief valve in the filter housing...

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...e-maybe-3.html

 

Yea the lpop is a brand new oem. That was the first thing I did was remove the oil cooler and the by pass valve looked like it was functioning fine but I still swapped in the one from my old engine just incase with the same outcome. I am leaning towards a lifter galley plug popped out the back or a cooling jet backed off... It looks like the motor is coming back out Friday. I appreciate the info.

 

Well finally got around to pulling my motor last night and did it in good time!! Pulled the truck in and got started at 5:30pm and finished bolting the motor to the stand at 8:36 so that went well. I dropped the oil pan today and sure enough one 1/2" oil galley plug sitting on the tray in my pan with no loctite residue what so ever.... Can't wait to hear the machine shop explain this one monday

 

I hear yuh about getting quick and smooth with doing work you've had to do before... on a motor that has everything "broke loose" already. It just sucks when you do your best, but you get sabotaged by things beyond your control.

I wonder how many other goodies are missing locktite. Ugh... I know your pain.

 

Yea definitly a lot of practice. My motor twice. For customers I have done 6 7.3's and about 15 6.0's. But for sure so much better when everything is clean and "broke loose". Thankfully the only thing the machine shop dealt with was the short block. Everything else I am responsible for and I am pretty confident in my work at least. Without the engine in front of me and not remembering for sure I believe I can't get to the cooling jets with the crank installed can I?

 

Also I imagine it would be a good idea to remove the timing cover and locktite the threaded gallery plugs behind the cam gear?