No oil pressure Buick 350...bad gauge?

[MrSony]

My Buick 350 reads no pressure on the gauge, but I do know oil is being pumped through the engine. The clear plastic line for the oil gauge has oil in it, there is only one place on the block to have an oil pressure fitting, behind the timing cover on the passenger side. Before freaking out, what should I look for? The engine starts up and stops on a dime, no loss of power, no flakes in the oil. I think the shitty Equus gauges might be the problem. Gonna try and borrow a known working gauge and see if that's it. But it's a mechanical gauge, with an oil line right to the gauge. The line isn't pinched anywhere, and I let all the air bubbles out. Anyone have this problem?

 

[MrSony]

And yes I packed the oil pump full of vaseline as per the manual and TA Performance's reccomendations. Oil pickup tube is sealed tightly. And the engine runs perfectly fine.

 

[pontiacgp]

I would not start the engine again until the problem is figured out and the plastic line is changed to a metal line

 

[MrSony]

I believe I have found the problem. As I used a tool (extension and socket taped together and a washer hammered in a deep well socket) to prime the oil system, oil was GUSHING out of the two holes beside the camshaft. MY dumbass forgot the plugs! That solves that issue, I hope. The lifters started to faintly chatter so I'm gonna give it a rest until I fix it. It's getting oil where it needs to, just not much. It still ran fine, but that's pushing it. I'll update as I go.

 

[MrSony]

To be fair, it wasn't the lifters so much as the rockers. I guess that really thick moly paste assembly lube stuff I used saved my bacon as it's all still on the valvetrain that I can see. Getting new timing cover gaskets tomorrow, and the plugs. Anyone know the size? I measured the ID of one of the plugs from my 3.8 (I assume they're the same size and look the same from what I've seen) came out to like .577 inches. I think that's around 9/16. Plan on tearing into it tomorrow. Updates as I go.

 

[jiho]

Heard that before. Don't feel too bad. At least it's different than leaving the main feed hole into the block plugged with a vacuum cap, the way I did.


But that did no harm, so you're almost certainly OK.

 

[RegalBegal]

They're the same as the 3.8. Don't forget to stake them in.

 

[MrSony]

Yep, that 100% fixed the problem. 50psi cold and 20 psi hot at idle.