Roland,,, I see that you dont have a fan shroud,,, fabricating and installing one would really, really help your cooling situation,,, a man with your grit and ability will have no trouble fabricating one.... just sit down with a cup of coffee and look at the engine/fan/rad ect. and sort it out in your mind before you start... when it is finished it will look ''factory'' if you do it right and paint it satin black....I have confidence in you , buddy... go for it....:laugh: BTW ,,, most likely what is causing the low oil pressure is the old cam bearings... I am really strong on replacing them when I go into a engine....:Brow:
I have a factory top protection plate that goes on top of the radiator which i painted. That may help flow (although only a tiny little bit I assume) ! When you mention cam bearings... you mean that single cam shaft that sit in the middle/top of the block ? The bearings on that could be worn and leak (or something like that) and be the culprit for all my oil pressure loss ?
yes,,, the oil comes out of the oil pump , goes to the mains, and then to the cam bearings.... if you replace the mains and rod bearings, and do not replace the cam bearings, the loose clearances will bleed the pressure down at the cam bearings.... i made that mistake one time.... after that , all the engines that I re do gets cam bearings....
X2! What Doc said. I am 1500 miles away from my shop manual, but as I recall, any oil pressure at all is acceptable at an idle. 25 PSI is a bit low, but should cause no problem if the engine is driven conservatively. I would not go to 20W50. The engine was designed to run on 30W or less. My 425 gets 10W30 and is happy with that. Many years ago when I was working at River St. Auto Service in Waltham, MA, we had a customer who had a '62 'Cat with a 401. He insisted on 10 weight HD oil year-round. We thought he was nuts. He never had any engine problems at all.
Just to make sure (in case I made a huge mistake) ... I could not find a picture of how to put the thermostat in. so I put the pointy side up with the capsule/cartridge side on the bottom. Is that right ?
Yep,,, the spring side goes down.... use straight 20 wt. in cool weather ,,, straight 30 wt. in summer.....
WOW !!! I had changed the springs in my distributor (and weights) to lighter springs (read that it brings the degrees in sooner and the nailhead likes that)...Well I may have been tired when I timed the ignition then but I decided to go back to the weights that were there originally and the harder springs and set the ignition timing again (it was way off !....hum....).... Got it to 12deg and started the car up..... The water temp (was a pb before) wont go over 170/180degrees (temp) !!! Yeah !!!!! I did not realize when the timing is off that it could screw up the water temp so much (was at 210deg before !!).... Oil pressure is at 25/30 psi whatever I do... (25psi cold, 30 psi reving, very low when hot and idling). I dont drive it hard so I wont worry about it...as long as I have 25psi I'm very happy with my car.. Did not yet set all the right idling speed/mixture screws etc.... Need to do that. Runs a little rich I think (smell). I'm relieved ! The water temp pb really bothered me....... Well until my next problem (see later below). I had a very bizarre (scary) thing happen to me. Its related to the generator (which I rebuilt). I was out with my girl and her son running the car yesterday (last nice days in Paris) for the car's first long run. At long lights I usually turn off the engine (I know I'm weird... Thought It may help save the planet a bit). Had no problems until an hour into our ride when at a light I turn off the engine. When I try to start again. Nothing ! Suddenly the alt light stays on even when I turn the key off and pull it out (bizarre).... I turn it on and off and the alt lights stays on and no life from the starter. I rush out to open the hood and smoke is coming out of the generator and it is really hot (voltage regulator too - engine heat or pb ?). I pull off the positive lead from the battery and wander what the hell happened!!! The generator is burning hot. I have no idea what to do. I cool off (me and not the generator!) and decide to turn the generator by hand a bit (assume something with the contacts on the armature was weird to produce smoke). Then I put back the battery cable and try to start the car. It starts !!!! But the alternator light stays on when reving (no charge ?). I assume I am running on the battery only now. I was not far from home. Once home I took off the generator and the voltage regulator and dismantle them on my kitchen table. All seems ok (I was amazed at how long the generator takes too cool off !). I test he armature grounding ...no its ok. Also the grounding of different wires (field etc..). The voltage regulator seems good too. I'm really not too sure how to test all this but I did basic grounding tests. I put everything back in the car and the alternator light still does not turn off (I did not have my voltmeter so I could not test the voltage at the battery when running). I drove the car back to its garage (30 min away from home) and took the battery out to charge it. I tried to figure out what went wrong and the only thing I could think of is I forgot to polarize the generator when I put it back after the rebuild (is that a big problem ?)...But the alternator light went off when reving after my rebuild....I'm lost !!! What happens if you forget to polarize a generator ? What happened/could the problem be ? What should I do now ? Did I burn something I have no clue how to test it ? I'm way over my neck on this one !!!
It sounds like you may be grounding on the hot side somewhere. I would check your wiring from the generator onward to see if the wire has rubbed through to ground or if a junction point has failed. You are not over your head here considering what you have done so far! It is just a matter of isolating and tracing the system back to the problem. Cheryl
