Sorry, but caddilac 390 Question...

Paul Perreca

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Mar 30, 2005
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My dad built a 390, and we just put it in and got it runnng. it runs, but theres like no oil pressure. The valve cover was off to check and there was only a little bit of oil covering the springs and rockers etc. Not running right, when revved up alot, the oil light in the car goes out.... any tips, tricks, or know hows at all about solving our problem. Needs to be solved asap, my dad is worried we might have to re yank the motor and put a new oil pump in, even though it is a new one already (maybe faulty) thank you very much...
Paul Perreca
 
it is a 1961 caddy, anyway, somebody give me sumthin, cuz we are working on it RIGHT NOW!!!! I don't wanna have to pull the y pipe off to drop the pan and put a new pump in if I dont HAVE to... People that know engines know engines, i dont, so if anyone has anything for me, please.. LOL -- Not a 5.0, but an engine is an engine, and i know you guys know ur engines!!
Paul Perreca
 
Maybe the pump is too close to the floor of the pan and not getting enuff oil. Sry I know you didnt want to pull the pan but the pump is almost certainly the problem. By the way did you get new motor for ur stang? Lates
 
Low oil pressure troubles make me think of a story that happened to my brother's friend. He had a well known, "respected" local engine shop build him a big block chevy and the build included a couple dyno pulls to verify the power it would make. It was a lot of money for the build.

Anyway the engine gets built the speed shop calls, says your engine is done and we have dynoed it, you're gonna love this engine. He goes to pick it up and and he's giventhe dyno sheet. Dynosheet said something like 580hp. Not huge a number, but this was back in like 1990. That was pretty good back then.

So he hauls this engine home and puts it in the car and hooks up everything including a mechanical oil pressure guage. After it's all hooked up he and another guy decide to fire it up and see how she's runs in a car. Hit the started and it's running, but no oil pressure, I mean ZERO oil pressure. They shut her down. Start checking everything. It all checks out. Only option left is pull it out of the car and inspect and/or fix the oil pump.

They put the engine on an engine stand, drained the oil and rolled her over to pull the oil pan. As soon as the oil pan was off they had found their problem. Their was a big piece of duct tape covering the entire oil pump pick up. The engine never saw the dyno and the "respected" shop screwed him over big time. They took the tape off. Buttoned it back up, filled it with oil and ran it on the engine stand and had perfect oil pressure.

Anyway, back to your post. If you have checked all the easy things, you're only choice is to pull the engine and ispect for internal causes. ie.. bad pump, blocked pickup, etc... I've heard of oil pump gaskets partially blocking the oil passage a few times.