I took my oil pan off today. At first it did not look too bad but then I noticed that all of the sludge was between the pick up and the pan, about 3/4 of a inch of sludge. I took the screen out of the pick up and poured some clean 30 WT into it and it only slow dripped out, like drip by drip. Think this alone could be my oil pressure issue?

starting to look better!

the pick up tube on the left, the fitting that screws into the oil pump slid right off. How exactly does that work? Is it a compression fitting?

The biggest issue right now is trying to clean the pick up screen. Does anyone sell a new one? If I fill it with carb cleaner it barley filters through that’s how gummed it is. Ideas?

Thanks as always!

Chris

Thanks MixerMan - here is the screen after a soak and some scrubbing. It’s hard to believe that this would not let carb cleaner drain through when I started.

I put everything back together and ran a motor flush tonight and put new 20-50 back in.

the results.... oil pressure is the same at idle. I’m a little disappointed that I did not pick up a few PSI considering how clogged the screen was. I did not drive the truck, hopefully I’ll maintain the 40 PSI as the engine warms up and not drop to 20 PSI like I did before.

Chris

I did not use plastigage, I was worried about going too far down the rabbit hole. Would the plastigage tell us anything we can’t already assume? I figure at this point I’ll just see how long this engine last and keep an eye out for a decent runner in the mean time.

Chris

I get ok flow to one head and not such great oil flow to the other head. This was before I cleaned the oil pan so maybe now that the pan is clean and the oil is much cleaner I’ll be able to get more oil to the rockers. I bought some new valve cover gaskets when I got the oil pan gasket so I’ll check oil flow again when I replace the valve cover gaskets.

Any tips to get more oil to the heads other than replacing the cam bearings?

Thanks,
Chris