No oil pressure?

[driller]

I received a call from someone looking for some help with a Mark VIII. The engine has been worked on and upon restarting the engine, the passenger side head is not oiling?

What could cause no oil pressure in the passenger side head only?? The drivers side is fine. Sounds like a blocked passage or bypass somewhere to me but I am at a loss as to where to begin to tell him where to look. He has already replaced the chain tensioner(s) on that side if that is a possible concern.

 

[LaserSVT]

Something is blocking an oil feed port. Sounds like the head needs to come off and be inspected. Could have put the head gasket on wrong maybe. Sonds more like there is something stuck in the feed though. Never seen only half the engine get oil before, when I saw the title my first thought was pump gears.

Whats the oil pressure?


EDIT: Is he running it with the valve covers off? Did he prime the pump first?

 

[MarkVIII93]

No oil pressure or just lower? What did the engine have done to it?

 

[driller]

Oil pressure is 'normal' and the drivers side head is oiling but not the passenger side? The head gaskets and cam tensioners were replaced.

The car fired up first try with no problem but the usual start-up tensioner noise did not go away. Knowing something was not right he isolated the noise to the passenger side and shut it down.

He said you could see the oiling in the drivers side through the oil fill hole. No such thing on the passenger side so he pulled the valve cover off. There is no oil pumping on the passenger side but he hasn't ran it much for fear of damage.

I doubt he put the head gasket on wrong, he's a very good gearhead but for some reason this Lincoln has him stumped. He knew I had a couple Mark VIII's so he called me for ideas. I may stop by one day this week just to see but I don't have a clue what to look for myself.

 

[slowmkviii]

I have seen this before it was a galley that needed to be blocked for oil to be directed to the head but that is all I can recall maybe you can look into it from there

 

[driller]

There's a pressure reducing orifice in the head that was found to have some FOD (Foreign Object or Debris).

It was cleaned out and the head and tensioner is oiling good once again.

 

[AbrahamLincoln]

F'n Fod brabic.

 

[LaserSVT]

Excellent.

 

[driller]

I'm not sure if he found it on his own or not, lol, but I did send him an email last night with some info from the manual. I had a set of heads in storage I was going to stop and look at on the way home from work, but he called me when I was on my way to tell me he found the problem.

If I think of it, next time I'm at the parts shed, I'll snap some pics and post up. You never know when someone else may run into the same problem. I know it's the first I've ever heard of such an issue. He said the orifice is really small - like 1/16" or so in diameter. The manual calls it a fixed opening pressure-reducing orifice and strainer. Apparently on the passenger side, it is towards the rear and on the drivers side it is towards the front. I don't know if this includes all the year models or not cause he said some were different. But he may have been confusing the C heads with the older B heads.

Either way he seemed pretty happy to have found the problem and fix it without having to resort to pulling the head.