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HIGH oil pressure

To: british-cars@hoosier
Subject: HIGH oil pressure
From: paisley@cme.nist.gov (Scotty Paisley)
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 09:20:00 EDT
Last year, I rebuild my '75 TR6 engine complete.  New oil pump, .020
pistons, block and head trued, etc.  Basically, everything that moved
was replaced.  (Humm...  I just had some recollection of a dream I had
lastnight that had something todo with a connecting rod - nevermind.)

Here we are 3000 miles later and this problem has persisted since
first ignition on the rebuild.  I'm using Castrol 10W40 and when I
first start then engine up in the morning, we're talking 100lbs of oil
pressure.  After the oil reached full temp, I've got 70-75 lbs of
pressure running, and 35-40lbs of pressure at idle, which I think is
ideal.  So I figure the previous owner dweeb must have put a heavy
spring in the oil pressure relief valve.  I just replaced the spring
this morning and no change whatsoever.  I did notice that in the
hollow bolt that the spring didn't go all the way to the bottom.  It
was hitting a stop of some sort.  My question is: Does the valve stem
go the same depth into the bolt that the spring does?  Is that stop
supposed to be there?

The setup now is like this:

  ----------|  <-- the relief valve
  [[========   <-- the spring sitting on some "thing" in the bolt.
                   (I can't get the "thing" out of there)

Should it be like this(?):

  ----------|  <-- the relief valve
  ==========   <-- the spring sitting on the back of the hollow bolt.

If that thing in the bolt isn't supposed to be there, how can I get it
out?  (Buy a new bolt?)  I'm sure this high oil pressure is putting a
bit of extra stress on my seals, but other than that, am I hurting
anything?  It's not leaking anywhere...  (Heck with that much oil
pressure, I doubt my crank is even touching the bearings.  :-)

I think that the engine is pretty well broken in now so I'm thinking
about a synthetic oil.  I was going to switch to Mobil 1, but the new
Castrol 5w50 synthetic looks really great.  Any opinions on these
oils?  Don't tell me to go out and buy a case of Redline because $7-$8
a quart is just too much $$$ for a 6 quart engine.  :-)

Ta ta for now....
---
>From the point of ignition, To the final drive.
The point of the journey is not to arrive.  Anything can happen. --Rush

-Scott

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