D17 Oil Pressure

I just purchased a 1959 D17 from a friend. He had bought it a year ago and got it running. (Apparently it had sat for about 5 years.) It was not locked up and just needed new points, plugs, etc.

It starts great and seems to run quite well. He installed a generic oil pressure gauge down by the oil filter that measures up to 60psi. I already know that this is a low pressure system and that the Allis gauge only goes to 30psi.

I decided it was time to stretch it's legs a bit and help a friend out by raking some hay. When I fire up the tractor, the gauge reads about 19psi, which is normal to me. I had about a 15 minute drive to get to my friends house and by the time I had gotten there, the pressure was down to about 10psi. Prior to heading out in the field, I checked everything over and all levels looked good. So I hooked up and started pulling a Massey Harris No.11 rake. I noticed about an hour in that my gauge was now only reading about 7psi. No smoke, no weird conditions or anything. I now kept a close eye on that gauge. About another 15 minutes later the tractor seemed to miss just a tiny bit and it almost seemed like it didn't have as much power. This made me paranoid so I took it back to the shed and let it cool down (still running of course.) Everything smoothed out but the oil pressure stayed low.

There is so much knowledge and experience on this forum. Please help me with my issue and tell me what you think is going on. By the way, it does have a Baldwin T300M filter. I have a Fram C159 on my shelf ready to go. Thanks for any help you can all give me!

A 59 would basically be the old WD style low pressure setup. Check the filter that is on it to make sure it has cotton and not paper inside and make sure that the center rod is still on the filter housing. That said, 20 cold and 7 hot sounds fairly close to me.
AaronSEIA

Sounds about the norm for them. Me I prefer the A/C gauge on them instead of ones with the numbers since they tell you if it ok or not. LOL. Having the correct oil filter is a must or the pressure will not be enough to run it

Thanks guys. I am planning on changing the gauge back to an allis gauge when I get the opportunity. It will also be going back to the dash board. I am so used to that gauge on my 'C' that I think those numbers are kinda freaking me out. What are your thoughts about it starting to miss just a smidge and losing a bit of power? It wasn't anything major, and I know that my awareness was elevated by watching that gauge, but I do think something was going on there. Thanks again!

I use a wix filter on my A/C tractors. Off the top of my head I do not remember the number of them. As miss can be many things like a cylinder low on compression if it sat long and has sticking rings or a fouled plug or bad plug wire or bad cap or rotor etc

I'm going to chat with the friend that I purchased it from and make sure I know what all he replaced prior to me investigating all on my own. I haven't even looked to see what kind of plugs are currently in it, let alone how they look. I am very excited about this project and being a full-time teacher, my free time is going to diminish greatly beginning this coming week! Thanks so much for your time Old. The forum says I am a new member, but actually I had a password issue and had to change my user name. I have been a big fan and you helped me out a ton during my 1944 "C" restoration about 7 years ago. Thanks again and I'm sure you will be seeing a lot more of me over the next months!

Always happy to help if and when I can and my e-mail is always open so if you need extra help I can try to help. Even have people call m for help at times