Flathead v8 no oil circulation

F

ford1948f1

Member
Hi, I had just rebuild my Flathead and it has no circulation of oil. I put an oil pressure gauge and it stays at 0 when cranking the engine. It has a new oil pump. and all new bearings. what could cause this. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. thanks in advance.
 
did you install the oil galley plug behind the cam gear? cam bearings the right size and installed right, ive seen reground cams with .010 under journals installed with standard bearings
 
Could be a defective new pump with a stuck open pressure relief valve. Don't know if an 8ba has a pressure regulation spring at the front of the valley like the earlier engines but if does and that is not in properly it could be losing pressure there. Pump may have just lost its prime. Are you turning it over with the plugs out so it spins faster? If you are seeing oil on the floor under the cotter key in the pan maybe the plugs at the back and front end by the cam were omitted. Those are just a few of the possibilities.
Good luck on that.
 
pump is new. main bearings, i double check the sizing on them and it was 30 under. could it be my main caps. i double check everything, it all seemed to be ok.
 
highest available pressure starts in the galley tube and depletes as it passes cam to mains to rods. If it is truly zero pressure I'd suspect missing front galley plug, missing fuel pump rod bushing, slipping cam gear, missing cam-to-pump idler gear, or sump pickup tube not installed. Don't mean to offend, but you didn't say who put engine together.

Lonnie
 
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I'm not much of a mechanic but if it were me, I'd remove the gauge,crank the engine and see if any oil squirts out of the hole. There should be a bunch.
 
As noted earlier, remove the spark plugs and crank the engine until you get oil pressure. Sometimes it takes awhile
 
>>>thanks for all your help. it stared to pump. 30 at crank.>>>

In a case of a rebuild, it's best to prime the system the lines first. For a flathead, I jury-rig a funnel near the pressure sending unit and feed or quart or so before even trying to crank the engine.

Jack E/NJ
 
Build yourself a pressure lube system and be done with it.I have built a few they are easy to build and work well.

R
 
Sometimes the oil pump pickup tube needs to be adjusted by carefully bending it to get the screen positioned correctly relative to the bottom of the oil pan. It's possible to prevent oil from getting pulled up through pickup tube if screen is forced tight against bottom of oil pan.
It's also possible that the engine was not spinning fast enough to start the oil pumping, especially if the pump (or complete system) had not been primed.
 
ford1948f1. Quick question: Did you use a Melling pump or an original 8BA. If Melling, did it just drop in place or did you have to work it in like a loose cam?

Lonnie
 
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