No Oil Pressure No start

[Brian Humphreys]

Hi. This is such a great forum. 

 

I wonder if you can help me; I'm getting more grey hairs every day as I try to start my neighbor's 49 Dodge.

Long story, but my retired neighbor has had a Dodge B1-B in his garage for a while, unable to get it to running properly. So I decided to volunteer my time to help get it on the road.

 

I rebuilt the motor, transmission, generator, starter (I started off just planning on replacing the head gasket)

 

Anyway, I put it all back together, but I have a few gremlins.  

 

It started initially, but then I had oil coming out the top of the oil filter container.  I stopped the motor, tightened the filter cover and now nothing is happening!

 

It won't start and I have zero oil pressure.

 

I've turned it over with no spark plugs in and get no oil feeding to the filter. I also checked the line to the oil pressure switch and I'm getting no oil there as well, so no oil in either of those lines.

 

I removed the oil pump a couple of times and primed it... it looks like it's working but hard to tell.

 

Where should I look next?

 

I just ordered a kit to rebuild the oil pump. I figure if I do that, and re-index the pump (and hence distributor) I should get spark back.

 

I'm just wondering what I'm missing?

Thanks!

 

 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2021 by Brian Humphreys
Typo

[kencombs]

The bypass filter will receive no oil until there is enough flow and pressure to open the regulator

[Brian Humphreys]

Thanks, but wouldn’t the oil pressure line receive oil straight away?

[Brian Humphreys]

At one stage I got it started and got no pressure building up at all.

[Bryan]

 

[Bryan]

[Bryan]

Start checking the relief valve before anything else. Wouldn't run it long without oil pressure. 

[greg g]

You might want to swap in an inexpensive aftermarket gauge to check if your gauge is reading.  

[Brian Humphreys]

At one stage I got it started and got no pressure building up at all.

Thanks. 
And yes, I’m not going to try a restart until I get oil flowing and pressure buildup.

BTW; I know it’s not the gauge as I haven’t got oil even going up the line to the guage. 

[Brian Humphreys]

Thanks Bryan!

[rallyace]

I had an issue on my freshly rebuilt 218. I could not get any oil pressure while cranking before its first start. I checked everything, tested with an inexpensive oil pressure gauge from O'Reillys, tried cranking with one of the oil gallery plugs removed, and found that I had all kinds of oil flow, just no oil pressure. I checked to make sure that I properly installed the plunger in the relief valve as you can easily put it in backwards. It was properly installed. That is when I found that the new oil pressure relief spring was not much stronger than a ball point pen spring. I cleaned up the spring from my old engine, installed it, and it solved the problem. Too weak a spring allows the relief valve to open fully and bypass too much oil back to the oil pan.  Just something else to check out.

[Brian Humphreys]

So here’s an interesting clue; it’s in the WTF category. So being the good backyard mechanic I am, I put everything back the way I found it.

Do you notice what some guy did to this truck? 
The oil lines are reversed!

I don’t know if that will solve my pressure problem, but hey, fixing that won’t hurt!!

Edited October 21, 2021 by Brian Humphreys
Typo

[Brian Humphreys]

By the way… that’s the old picture… the motor looks wonderful now

[Brian Humphreys]

Here’s the cleaner motor  

[Brian Humphreys]

Actually I have another question. Some motors have the lines feeding as per the images above and others have then the way they were in the photo above. Does anyone know if the lines change across the blocks?

[Booger]

Thats sweet!. By pass oil filter can altogether, see what happens

[Dodgeb4ya]

You said oil was leaking out of the filter top...so the pump was working..

So

#1 ...Check that the relief valve and spring is correct before worrying  about the oil filter lines

Oil filter housing should be stamped "in" and "out" at line connections.

There are different brands/ types of oil filter housings (oil lines reversed).

#2....Possibly but unlikelythe floating oil pick up is floating too high in the oil sucking air.? There are little metal tabs on the pickup tube that if get bent change the floating oil pickup drop and height. 

I've had a couple engines that had this issue.

The oil pan needs 5 qts plus at least one for the filter.

The oil filter had to fill up completely up to start leaking ...

That also means the oil pan oil level dropped too.

Recheck the oil level.

 

 

[kencombs]

In and out lines change with filter maker,  engine is the same.  There were several brands of after market filters back in the day.  I don't remember which but the cartridge and sock type are not the same.

[keithb7]

After checking several service manuals that I have here, they were all unclear on how the plunger and spring are to be installed. These photos above here it is very clear. The spring sits in the recess of the plunger. I had to keep digging to find an image like shown above.  Is there a chance your plunger and spring are not installed as shown above?

[Brian Humphreys]

Just a bit of an update. I may have a solution… maybe.

I pulled the oil pump out and checked that. The cover gasket was really thick, and had a lot of silicon. It’s possible I guess (well I read on line) that a thick gasket can stop the pump from working. I’ll swap that out and see if that works.

Thanks everyone!

[Brian Humphreys]

40 minutes ago, keithb7 said:

After checking several service manuals that I have here, they were all unclear on how the plunger and spring are to be installed. These photos above here it is very clear. The spring sits in the recess of the plunger. I had to keep digging to find an image like shown above.  Is there a chance your plunger and spring are not installed as shown above?

Hi. No, I’ve check the spring in the relief valve a few times. Clean, installed correctly etc. And yes, those images are really clear. 
thanks

[Dodgeb4ya]

1 hour ago, Brian Humphreys said:

Just a bit of an update. I may have a solution… maybe.

I pulled the oil pump out and checked that. The cover gasket was really thick, and had a lot of silicon. It’s possible I guess (well I read on line) that a thick gasket can stop the pump from working. I’ll swap that out and see if that works.

Thanks everyone!

The  "Rotor style"oil pump on a B series does not use a gasket on the pump cover. A quad style O-ring with out any sealant is used. The O ring is seated down into a groove machined in the pump housing.

Rotor to pump cover clearance is factory set...no clearance adjustment required.

The Old 30's style MoPar  "Gear Tooth" type oil pumps had gaskets used to both set clearances of gears to cover clearance and to seal the cover.

Make sure which pump you have to service it correctly.

I think the cover clearance is no more than .004"

 

Edited October 22, 2021 by Dodgeb4ya

[Pete]

When I got my 1939 Plymouth the oil filter lines were reversed. It still had oil pressure at the gauge. It ran fine, it just wasn't filtering the oil.

 

Check the filter to see if the inlet and outlet are marked on the case. Some filters had the outlet on the bottom, some had the inlet on the bottom.

 

Pete

 

[Bryan]

Any luck on solving it yet?

[Brian Humphreys]

Hi. I thought I replied to this, but I think I didn’t do it correctly.

 

Thanks everyone.

I got the oil flowing and the truck started.

the oil pump was the problem; I should not have installed a cover gasket. As soon as I removed that it started working perfectly.

So thank again.