Thanks to all who responded to my oil pressure problem on my 350. I ended
up removing the engine from a freshly painted body and tore it completely
down checking all bearing clearances as I went. Nothing broken, nothing out
of spec anywhere until I called the machinist that cleaned and bored the
block for me. After some head scratching he asked me if I had checked the
distributor because he said Chevy had released a service bulletin years ago
about excess clearance between the distributor and the lifter valley causing
low oil pressure. I had purchased a remanufactured HEI distributor from
Auto Zone and never suspected anything to be wrong with it. Well, when I
checked it where it passes through the lifter valley it was .020" to .027"
undersize!!!! That's big enough to drive a truck through. I took it back
and exchanged it for another one that is only .002" undersize. Now I get to
buy all the stuff I need to reassemble the engine as well as the fun of
cleaning everything before I put it back together again. All this time I
could have been enjoying driving it around instead of busting my knuckles
and feeling terrible trying to figure out what went wrong.
I guess for anybody else out there having oil pressure problems I would
suggest checking the diameter of your distributor and the hole in the lifter
valley since it is pretty simple to do. The old Chevy distributors had "O"
rings on them for a seal but they don't do that anymore.
Terry Stellman
1949 3600
Missouri City, Texas
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