very low oil pressure

I've picked up a Fordson Major to power a chipper, and am pleased with its performance But what has me concerned is that the oil pressure gauge wasn't showing any pressure to speak of. I screwed the gauge almost all the way out and got oil leaking out, so I'm presuming that there actually is some oil pressure. the

The gauge was not original and was built to indicate from 0-100 psi. One guess was that the gauge was defective, so I purchased a replacement gauge that indicates fron 0-40 psi. I've put about 10 hours on the "new" Fordson, and I'm presuming that if there actually was [u:7f59d092d7]no[/u:7f59d092d7] oil pressure, something bad would have already happened.

/home/walt/Pictures/2019/blue2_190919_01.jpg

When I started the Fordson up with the new oil gauge in place, the gauge did indicate a small amount of pressure--just enough to lift the needle up to where the red zone meets the green zone. When the engine was fully warmed up, most of that went away.

I'm looking for some feedback on how much I should be worrying about this; how close to "normal" is a low oil pressure reading on a rig like this? Is there something I need to do, like check to see if there's a problem with an oil filter pressure relief valve, or if I need to go with a heavy weight oil? Any thoughts would be most appreciated. -- Walt


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Low oil pressure was fairly common back in the day, I have seen them run quite happily at
around 10 psi, My own petrol/kerosene ran about that when hot for over 20 years until I
overhauled the engine. I still have the same oil pump as original. My oil pressure now is
between 40 psi when warm and 30 psi when hot and a petrol/kerosene runs far hotter than a
diesel.

Originally, after the rebuild, I ran semi-synthetic oil and the oil pressure remained
low. After talking to my oil supplier about low oil pressure and oil leaks on my other
tractors he recommended that I use 20/40W or 20/50W, this I now do in all my tractors
whether petrol or diesel, the oil pressure came up and the oil leaks stopped. My tractor
age range is from 1948 to 1968.

Just my experience. I use fully synthetic in my cars with no problems.

Majorman,

I drained the oil when hot, and replaced it with 15-40W and some STP. When I started it back up, the oil pressure showed a third of the gauge (far better than just being able to move the needle). I'm feeling much more confident now

Thanks again for the response and the encouragement.

~~ Walt

I would be very wary of low oil pressure as chipper
Takes a fair bit of power to drive
Is cooling system ok?

The cooling system appears to be doing okay; the tractor heats up without appearing to overheat. Doesn't leak, the belts are good.

We don't do long runs with the chipper (40 minutes thereabout) and mostly it's just 1" to 2" branches.

But, yes, I'm feeling much better now that we're showing something around 15 psi of oil pressure instead of barely 5.

with appreciation,

~~ Walt