No oil pressure

[warra]

Kent 1600 reconditioned engine, recondition 5 port oil pump. 20lbs oil pressure cold at 3000rpm, 20w-50 mineral oil. Tried two mechanical guages and lines.
Bypassed the oil filter and checked all pumping is correct. Winding the oil pump adjuster in makes no difference to pressure.

Any ideas ?????

[quest]

Have you checked to see if all of the oil galley plugs are in? Double check the one under the cam sprocket.

[GORDON STREETER]

As they are one of the simplest of engines as long as its piped up correctly there shouldn't be a problem.
Did you recon the engine and pump or somebody else ? if it's the latter I would throw it back at them.
If it's correctly fitted in the car it could be the pump plunger stuck open/missing gallery plug/ wrong main or big end shells.

[GORDON STREETER]

Did you find anything yet ?
I have seen people put standard backed main bearing shells in line bored blocks a few times !

[Tim Falce]

Originally Posted by GORDON STREETER

Did you find anything yet ?
I have seen people put standard backed main bearing shells in line bored blocks a few times !

What does that mean, what does it do or not do?

[Jon Davis]

Main bearings can be oversized in both directions . . . if you damage your crank then you regrind it and use oversized (reduced ID) main bearings . . . if you damage your block (crank and bearings sieze solid and then bearings spin in block) then you have the block and main bearing caps opened up and use oversized (increased OD) main bearings. If the block and caps have been opened up and you put in standard bearings then the clamp loads on the bearings won't be right and oil with either leak between the bearings and the block or between the bearings and the crank as the clearances will be too great.

I am actually after the latter type main bearings for a 2.4 TDCI Ford Diesel engine but thats a different thread for a different forum!

[Tim Falce]

Jon, That's how I understood line boring to be done but a couple of engineering companies, and one or two other people who know, tell me that they grind the bolt faces of main caps down and line bore that way so in actual fact the crank is offset one way by a few thou.
This was for a 6 cyl XK Jaguar engine where oversize bearings (on the block and cap side) are not available, I thought this was the same for all engines.

[GORDON STREETER]

Tim that's how most of the decent engineering companies do it with the better more accurate machinery available today.
I have had steel main caps fitted to loads of blocks over 40 years and they all used to line bore them + and you had to get the shells to match.
However I don't think you can get the shells now (or are very hard to find)
In latter years they only seem to line bore the cap side without touching the block at all.

[warra]

Hi Gordon


Haven't found the cause yet will start the strip and measure the engine this W/E and let you know. Someone said you can get a crack in the block across the oil galleries which causes similair problems.. In Australia they normally close the caps then hone so the OD is normal size. Spoke to an engineer about it and he mentioned with steel caps you can have problems as the hone bites into the soft iron of the block more then the steel cap.

[Jon Davis]

Skimming the caps and then reboring the assembly would be an option if oversized OD bearings were not available. I personally don't think it is the way to go with an FF1600 engine as, as you say, the new main bearing bore would have to be slighly 'higher' in the block meaning that the piston would be slightly higher in the cylinder bore . . . in 'normal' situations this is probably okay but a good FF1600 engine will have been blueprinted such that the piston is already as high as it can be, which means you would then have to consider skimming the top of the piston and probably deepening the valve cutouts which would then take your balanced to the minimum weight pistons underweight. Oh and you can get oversized OD bearings for the crossflow (Burton Power).

Machining dissimilar metals is a challenge. Each metal has it's own 'feed and speed' reqiurements and so you have to find a compromise. You can also find that the swarf from the steel side can then be dragged round and score the cast iron side. Can you use steel caps in an FF1600 engine?

[warra]

AS some people suggested the main tunnel is 15th oversize, which means +15 main bearings not standard.

[Al Weyman]

Blimey didnt someone notice that when building the engine, they should be a nice firm almost tight fit into both the cap and the block, if they are not its a certain sign of trouble even if the block has not been line bored as it shows that there is some stretch or trauma in the mains area if they fit like a *rick in a bucket! I had this on the rear mains on one of my engines recently and decided to scrap the block. BTW does anyone know of a reasonable and competant company that can line bore a small block Chevy engine down the South east as my man doesnt have the equupment to do it and i want to convert a two bolt main block to splayed four bolt.

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by Al Weyman

BTW does anyone know of a reasonable and competant company that can line bore a small block Chevy engine down the South east as my man doesnt have the equupment to do it and i want to convert a two bolt main block to splayed four bolt.

http://www.ctmperformance.com/

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by warra

AS some people suggested the main tunnel is 15th oversize, which means +15 main bearings not standard.

Mmm I was right. I bet it wasn't built by a competent engine man !

[warra]

Suppose to be reliable as he races himself. When I get the full details back from the machine shop I will give him a call. Hope he is cooperative or his name might get out in the local ff community.

[Al Weyman]

We can all cock up but a simple test with the plasti-guage stuff would have shown a problem straight away.