LA Oiling Question
Was the plate no flat or junk? Done dozens and dozens of these engines and never used those goody plugs. Most of the engines I know were untouched from the factory didn't have those plugs in them.
Again, just dumb redundancy.
Edit: you could have had a plate that looks like the plate in post 12. I'd throw that plate away.
No, that plate was the original one from a 71 340....
That was the first engine that I ever built and we didn't have a stash of parts at the time like I do today, so that was the factory original one...
I had to pull the engine 4 times before finding the problem... Everyone kept telling me that it was our bearings because the distributor drive shaft didn't mesh properly with the hex drive in the oil pump and tore the oil pump hex up...
I replaced that pump with a new one and assembled the engine, and it still had the problem... Everyone kept telling me that I must have wiped out the bearings... It was Ken Neve from Mopar Muscle club that told me how to properly diagnose the problem - turn the oil pump while gradually tearing the engine down and look for oil gushing out somewhere, there will be where we are loosing pressure...
I had to make a priming shaft in my high school welding class because Mopar did not make them yet... So I made me a priming shaft by cutting an allen wrench off at the bend and welding it to a 5/16" metal rod...
When I tried spinning the oil pump with a drill, I could not see any oil gushing out... Then my older brother came in the garage with his friend and saw the drill with the priming shaft on it and gave it a whirl... When he did a jet of oil shot out of the camshaft thrust plate and almost hit me... I got excited and told him to do that again (he thought I was pissed at him), so he hit it again and another jet of oil shot out (this time I was not directly in front of the engine) and we traced it to the missing oil galley plugs under the camshaft thrust plate...
After installing the oil galley plugs, the oil pressure was fine... I knew there wasn't enough run time on the engine to wipe out the bearings like all the others kept insisting...
So after installing the engine back in my Challenger for the 5th time, it only took me 12 hours to reassemble the engine and drop it in ready to fire...
So after that much trouble, I always check to make sure the oil galley plugs are in when I build an engine... Plus with it not squirting when I spun the oil pump, then it did when my brother did, it tells me that it could be an intermittent problem and not do it all the time... So I don't take any chances...
I would rather spend a couple more dollars and a few minutes to install the plugs, than take a chance and have to pull an engine over it again... Redundant or not, I don't play around with low oil pressure...
