Question: When using original oil gauge in a '53 Chev Pick up, it only goes to 30 PSI, what do you have to do with out wrecking it when you put a 350 in and oil pressure is near 80 PSI? What worked? Thanks guys. ~Lee P
Oilpressure meter. Many of the hotrodders install a seprate electric or mecanicall oilpressure meter directly on there engine or in the truck cabin. I`ll gues its adviceble to have it inside to keep an eye with your pressure ! You can buy these pressure meters everywhere. They also sell the retrofit truck dash cauge that shows near 100 PSI . Talk to our host CPA. http://www.classicparts.com/1947-53-Speedo-Gauge-Kit-Vintage/productinfo/24-704B/ You could also talk to bigtimjameson on this forum , he knows for shore ! Martinius.
Swap to a 60# guage. It will peg the 30#, I don't know if it will blow it. On a small chevy, any pressure is generally good pressure. They tend to over oil their engines, some racers actually plug some oil galleys to restrict some flow.
Oil Pressure Gauge Back in the day , when you upgraded to a full pressure 235 , the Dealer actually had a special 60 # oil pressure gauge in the correct color , IIRC it came from the Dubble-Dutti vans (' P Van ') . I just use the original gauge and never had one leak yet although I've heard of a few doing so - my bet is : that gauge was bad anyway if it leaks . I'm not sharp on SBC's but I'da thought they usually didn't run over 60 # in stock application . In any case , running the original gauge makes rthe end user happy because it stays close to pegged all the time so they're happy . You don't ever need 80 # of oil pressure , volume is what keep the engine going , excess oil pressure actually causes oil leaks . That's my .02 and I'll stick to it .
Some vendors, even our vendor IIRC has a swap out gauge that goes to 60#, so you can retain originality, also carry a longer water temp line just for the SBC swaps. Flashlight
