Technical Question about Olds 303 with no oil pressure

Hello all, looking for some advice. I have an Olds 303 that runs and had 40psi when run on a stand about a year ago from the guy I bought it from. Got the motor fired tonight and I have 0 oil pressure. at that point I tried another gauge and still 0. Any thoughts?

Tomorow I'm going to pull the oil gauge line from the back right of the block and check to see if its blocked. then pull the pan and see if the pickup is blocked. Yes, there is oil in the engine. and no I had 0 when trying to cold start it. fired it to see if I would get pressure then but didn't Does anyone else have any suggestions?? Thanks Doug

 

sounds like you are on the right path.
could be sludge clogging the pick up screen.

how many miles on it and how long has it been sitting?

could also be a stuck pressure relief valve and clogged filter.. ?

 

Or a broken oil pump drive shaft.

 

Just a guess, but did you have the distributor out, and reinstall? IIRC, when i did the electronic conversion on my 55, back in the 80's, I had no pressure when I reinstalled everything. Turned out that when I put the distributor in, it pushed the drive down to the point where it didn't engage in the distributor!

 

The motor has been in and out of the car for @ a year now. History unknown but when i bought it i got a video of the previous owner running it on a stand.

Thanks for the advice. I started by pulling the distributor and everything looks good there. The drive gear at the bottom and the d shaft. I tried it again still 0 psi. I dropped the pan and the screen is clear and nothing blocking it in the pan. I dropped the oil pump and ops checked it in the pan with oil and it pumps oil. I installed back in and temp installed the pan. I tried to prime the pump and still 0 psi. I pulled the valve covers to check for oil also and still nothing.

 

Is it pumping oil or byp***ing it? I've had to pack Vaseline into a few pumps to get them to prime.

 

so pump works, next in line is the filter.
pull the oil filter block and prime by spinning the pump shaft counter clockwise, like the distributor rotation,
oil should flow from the lower hole.
if it does
verify check ball is free in filter block and fresh filter.
if they are
prime again with filter in place and roll the engine over by hand to align the oil galleries in cam and block, pull the rocker ***emblies, oil should flow from the heads when aligned.

 

where exactly are you connecting the gauge?
did you see oil at that port when priming and no gauge attached?

 

Thanks everone and Paul for the ideas. Today i cut up and old distributor to make a better priming tool. And started at the guage sending area, then moved down to the remote filter. And found the problem I switched the lines around so it wasnt building pressure and flowing oil. ****oned her back together and fored her up. A nice 40 psi. Thanks. It was her madden voyage today.

 

excellent, congratulations!

 

Nice

 

Cool car and glad you got it sorted.

 

Looking good!