Lost oil pressure on the freeway on Tuesday

This last Tuesday i was heading down to visit my brother for his birthday and of course I took the Ranchero. When I was maybe 8 miles away (still on I19 mind you) my oil pressure gauge dropped like a rock and my temp gauge spiked! As I pulled over the engine sounded a bit like a paint mixer and after waiting on the shoulder for a couple hours the flatbed finally showed up and hauled the poor girl back to my place. I have yet to pull and crack open the 400 to see just how bad it is on the inside but I'm prepared for the worst (such as removing whats left of the cam with a pressure washer). This leaves me with a dilemma, on 1 hand this engine was my first build and had been running fairly well for the past year, and on the other hand my buddy has a 460 jet boat motor sitting in his garage that he keeps hinting that I should take it off his hands. The 460 has an edelbrock intake, mystery cam, and shorty headers, and from what I've heard, jet boat motors generally pack quite a punch especially once they migrate landward.

So I'm asking for all the input I can get here on getting my daily driver back on the road as quickly as possible (and hopefully without any more catastrophic failures).

Heck ya, drop that 460 in there.

The 400's never were known to break any records on oil pressure. Thats their downfall is the oiling system.

bbf-falcon wrote:The 400's never were known to break any records on oil pressure. Thats their downfall is the oiling system.

The motor had only been running for about a year as my daily driver since the rebuild, the oil pump was new too. This complete failure has been very disappointing but replacing it with this 460 seems more palatable every minute I think about it!

Do the 460,you will be a head in the long run,parts,POWER

The coolant temperature's sudden increase raises an eyebrow but before I would get to carried away with removal, I would pull the distributor out and check the condition of the oil pump shaft. If broke or damaged, replace it, check the appearance of the oil, if OK, check the coolant, start it up and look and listen. Maybe the old girl simply farted and didn't shit her panties!

Dave.

Sometimes I think to myself "If it weren't for bad luck I wouldn't have any luck at all". Me, mom, and my brother went up to get the 460 that will soon be taking residence between the fenders of my Ranchero, got it loaded up just fine... And forgot to grab the flexplate... Got it back to my house, back the truck up, everything is in position and come to find out that the seals have gone bad the ram for my hoist!!! So tonight the engine remains in the back of moms truck until my brother can come up tomorrow with the ram from his hoist so that we can get this project under way.

On the bright side a full gasket set for the motor is really reasonably priced so I see no reason to not crack it open and check out the insides!

I've had those kind of days on many occasions.

LivermoreDave wrote:Maybe the old girl simply farted and didn't shit her panties!

Dave.

Hahahahaha