I just had a complete rebuild done on my '52 8n. It was done by a guy who has done several and likes working on older Ford tractors. The reason I had it done was I was not getting oil pressure on start-up unless I primed the oil pump by squirting oil into the front of the engine. It finally got to the point where even that didn't work. Anyway the guy replaced the oil pump instead of rebuilding the old one. I now wish I would have insisted. After I got it back I noticed that on start-up the oil gauge needle wouldn't move right away but after a couple of seconds it would snap over to 40-50 lbs. Then after setting a few days it took a bit longer for the needle to respond. This morning after it sat for a week, the needle won't move at all. All too familiar a sight! I thought I had an old gauge lying around but can't find it. I assume eliminating the new gauge he put on would be the first step. If something simple doesn't fix it he will have to. I haven't called him yet because I wanted to cool off a bit first. My question is: should I try to find an old oil pump that has been rebuilt if he decides to change it? He asked me if I wanted my old parts and I thought I said yes I will come and get them. I forgot about it and when I remembered he said he had taken them to the scrap yard that morning. Any advice other than I should have known better than to not rebuild the old pump?

Perhaps he knew what he was doing and had the block align bored for the new bearing cap-ask him.

He may like working on them but he doesn't know a lot about building engines. You can't just swap main bearing caps around. Now you have a real unknown and significant added expense. The engine needs to be align honed to match the new cap to your block. Then you can resume your search for your lost oil pressure.

TOH

" Anyway the guy replaced the oil pump instead of rebuilding the old one. "

Big problem. Very big problem.

The pump housing is is the front main bearing cap.

Unless he align bored the block......it will never have oil pressure.

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What weight oil?
Energy conserving or non detergent?