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Old Aug 23, 2005 | 09:30 PM
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help low oil pressure

i have a 89 351w what should the oil pressure be at idle i'm using 15w40 oil ?thank you! (saltydog)
 
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Old Aug 24, 2005 | 12:17 PM
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what gauge are you using? if its the stock gauge they dont work and i suggest a manual gauge to give an accurate reading. the norm is 10lbs/1000 rpms. but personally anything lower then 20psi at idle i would be looking into whats causing that. going up to 20-50 will help as well. but check with a mechanical gauge
 
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Old Aug 24, 2005 | 12:59 PM
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Definately get a mechanacal gauge and disconnect the origanal gauge so you will look at the new one. After installing mech. gauge I did a lot of testing and changed from 20W-50 to 10W-30 and it is great. While you are at it change to mechanical water temp gauge too.
 
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Old Aug 24, 2005 | 07:41 PM
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i switched it to a mechanical gage already. both water & oil & voltmeter. i forgot to bleed air from the oil line to gage. At 1000rpm @ 10 psi.oil pressure
 
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Old Aug 24, 2005 | 09:33 PM
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Bleading oil guage line is not necessary. My '94 351W 169K miles oil pressure reads 20psi at 700rpm, water temp 204, on 91 degree day after a highway run for 22 minutes running 10W-30 oil. The 70 mph pressure was 47psi under load up a hill. I did the same test the weekend before but with 20W-50 and got 30psi hot idle and did not record the highway oil pressure. I was interested in the time the different weights took to "stabilize". The 10W-30 takes about half as long for full oil flow to occur as 20W-50 from a cold start. My tests were not very scientific but in my opinion the trend toward 10W-XX or even 5W-XX is a good suggestion. The 20W-50 had a Baldwin made filter and the 10W-30 has Bosch filter.

Your 10Psi @1,000 sounds like you are okay but just barely. Is yours a 351W (5.8)? Do your lifters rattle when you start the engine? If not, a mechanic may say don't worry about it quite yet. Start saving some money if you drive it a lot.
 
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Old Aug 25, 2005 | 09:05 AM
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how many miles on the motor and have you done a compression test yet?
 
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Old Aug 25, 2005 | 03:51 PM
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not sure of mileage of motor pulled from junkyard find putnew lifters,oilpump, waterpump,rods ,oilpan,timing chain on. my bronco had a 302 in it about 80,000 mi. on that motor before it blew oil into the air filter housing.tore down the 302 and found some bad pistons.trying to rebuild the 302 as cheap as possible. what is the timing on the 351w? I had set the timing to tdc but when i start it and check with light its way off. When i turn it over and set the timing mark on crankshaft and #1cyl to top of cyl the mark doesnt line up together!
 
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Old Aug 25, 2005 | 04:05 PM
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10*btdc with vac advance plugged or if efi the spout connector removed.
 
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