[TR] Oil pressure in my TR6

[glemon at neb.rr.com]

I agree with what Dave said. While the numbers are lower than you will see for a fresh motor, or even a well worn one in good nick, I have driven many motors many miles with similar numbers and nothing has blown up.  There is an old adage about 10 psi per 1000 rpm being adequate.  In addition to a new oil pump a new rocker shaft and or new rod bearing can bolster up the pressure short of a pull the engine rebuild.

Greg Lemon

---- Dave Massey <dave1massey at cs.com> wrote: 
>  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?
> 
> ** triumphs at autox.team.net **
> 
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