[TheWeekenderKit]

I've recently hit a snag and wanted to know a bit more before tearing into the engine.

Background: I picked up a 1966 Mustang with a sight-unseen rebuild of a 200 I6. It runs great with good oil pressure (or so I think). I was prepping the car for a trip from Florida to Alaska and out of pure luck, I decided to look into the head from the oil cap to discover it was pretty much completely dry (besides oil from an oil change).

I have driven it a few miles already and had no odd clanks, bangs, or smoke of any kind. I pulled the distributor, and rocker assembly, and used a drill to spin the pump. I'm getting oil to the pressure sender unit and the lifters as they pump up the pushrods. I am not getting oil through the passage in the back of the head. It does sound like I'm getting an abundance of oil in the timing cover area but it could just be me.

Are there any other possible reasons besides a possible missing plug(?) in the timing cover area that could cause no oil getting to the head? I've searched quite a bit but it seems my particular problem is pretty specific, unless I missed something. Thanks in advance for any info!

 

[tb65m66]

Check out this thread on fordsix.com. Someone else had the same problem.

 

[Magnus]

If you're lucky maybe it's something simple and it's just the rocker arm assembly that's clogged up.

For a quick test you could just take off the valve cover and the rocker arm assembly and try turning the oil pump shaft. If everything else is good then the oil should come out of the hole under the rearmost pedestal.

 

[TheWeekenderKit]

If you're lucky maybe it's something simple and it's just the rocker arm assembly that's clogged up.

For a quick test you could just take off the valve cover and the rocker arm assembly and try turning the oil pump shaft. If everything else is good then the oil should come out of the hole under the rearmost pedestal.

I tried that. Nada. Even had the car running for a bit with the cover off and not even a drip. I took the head off and still couldn't get oil to the passage. I think it's the worst case scenario and maybe the rear camshaft bearing wasn't lined up properly? So oil can't get through.

 

[Woodchuck]

Somebody stuck the wrong head bolt in the hole for the driver's side rear head bolt, plugging the oil passage.

 

[Still workin' on my 66]

If you don't have the head bolt with the necked down shank you can grind 3 light flats, evenly spaced, on the head bolt to clearance the oil passage. Just grind a little from the bolt head down to the threads. Good luck

 

[Magnus]

So if I'm reading this right:

You have oil pressure at the sending unit.

With the head removed you still don't have oil coming out to the top of the engine block

I could be wrong, but I think that the oil pressure sending unit is after the crank and camshafts in the oiling system. The cam is pretty low down so I think it's before the sending unit.

To me (and I am absolutely no expert here) I'm wondering if you've just got a clogged passage leading to the head.

Here's a thought: Since you're got the head off, put a towel over the oil port on the back, take out the sending unit and hold an air hose up to it and see if you can blow air from the sending unit hole out of the top of the block. Maybe you can blow out whatever's clogging the passage.

If it works then definitely make sure you've got the right bolt when you put it back and and make sure that nobody put sealer on it or anything weird like that.

 

[TheWeekenderKit]

So if I'm reading this right:

You have oil pressure at the sending unit.

With the head removed you still don't have oil coming out to the top of the engine block

I could be wrong, but I think that the oil pressure sending unit is after the crank and camshafts in the oiling system. The cam is pretty low down so I think it's before the sending unit.

To me (and I am absolutely no expert here) I'm wondering if you've just got a clogged passage leading to the head.

Here's a thought: Since you're got the head off, put a towel over the oil port on the back, take out the sending unit and hold an air hose up to it and see if you can blow air from the sending unit hole out of the top of the block. Maybe you can blow out whatever's clogging the passage.

If it works then definitely make sure you've got the right bolt when you put it back and and make sure that nobody put sealer on it or anything weird like that.

I ran across this in one of the forum posts. The sending unit is definitely after the crank because I probably would have already locked up the engine. I'm going to recheck the head bolt and try the compressed air trick. Thanks for the input guys! Definitely some things I hadn't thought of.

UPDATE: I stuck a rod down the oil passage and brought up a decent chunk of sludge so I'll work on getting what I can out of the system and see if I can get oil up there. I also did not have any head bolts necked down for the oil passage so this was a 2 for 1.