> Next step will
> be to take out ball/spring doohinky and check.
IMO, not worth looking there. Even with a broken spring, you should see
_some_ pressure.
> How does one check pressure at the block?
A couple of things come to mind (assuming this is a TRactor motor). One is
to start the engine very briefly (or even just spin it with the starter and
the spark plugs out) with the line to the gauge disconnected (or removed
from the filter head), and see if oil sprays out of the line/opening.
Obviously that's kind of drastic, but if you really have no oil pressure at
all, you want to keep engine run time to an absolute minimum or it soon
won't run at all (and will be much more difficult to fix).
Those Bourdon tube type gauges can fail suddenly, but I've never seen a TR
version fail completely like that. What I have seen happen is the drive to
the oil pump shear off, due to a bound-up pump. Since the weakest part of
the drive is right at the pump, the distributor keeps turning (and hence the
engine still runs fine until the bearings lock up due to lack of oil).
I was doing about 70 when it happened to me (oil pump sucked up a piece of
FOD through the broken screen), but got the engine shut down before the
bearings were ruined. Even the pump was OK (once I got the broken locktab
out of it), so the shaft and pan gasket were the only casualties. But I
changed the rod bearings anyway, just because I had the pan off.
But a friend of a friend (of a friend) didn't notice his loss of oil
pressure until the bearings overheated ... time for a new crankshaft.
Randall
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