[TR] Oil pressure in my TR6

[Dave Massey]

 That sounds a little low but no terminally so.  You may have excess
clearances in the oil pump and a fresh pump may improve things significantly.
Camshaft clearances also help determine oil pressure but that is a bit more
work to address.

Keep in mind that the TR6 does typically run lower pressure than the old
TRactor motor typically does so don't expect to see those pressures on an
engine with a lot of miles.

And if that kind of oil pressure scares you stay away from a TR8.  Those
things run in the single digits at warm idle.



Dave Massey






-----Original Message-----
From: Joe DeMuth <jdemuth at ties2.net>


Help. Just bought a '73 TR6 after selling the TR3 I owned for thirty years.
Everything looked good about this car, but I soon became concerned with the
oil pressure reading. At idle, running 20-50 oil, all heated up, the pressure
dropped to what looked like about 10 lbs or less on the gauge. At highway
speed it read about 40. I dropped the pan and used Plastigauge to check
clearance in the mains. I checked the back three and all where in the 2
thousandth range, which I assume is good, can't find a spec for that. All
bearings had oil. I didn't do the front one because I didn't have a new
timing
chain gasket, but assumed three are good the other is probably OK. I checked
one rod bearing and it was well within spec. The rocker train appears to be
lubed its full lenght. Pulled the oil pump and found it to be just over the
high end of the various specs. Put in a new one, checking clearances before
installation. Pulled the oil relief valve and found that the previous owner
had replaced the standard spring with the slightly longer one sold by Moss.

I put it all back together. Now I have about 6o lbs at highway speed, but
only
about 12 at idle. I checked the gauge by hooking up an after market gauge in
the oil pressure warning sender hole. The gauges read about the same across
the whole range of rpm

So, can I get by with this? Do I need to look further, if so, where?