Water Temp/ Oil pressure issues

[flaconinja]

So I just took my bronco on her maiden voyage in the neighbor hood. No drastic problems that I could identify.

I did however noticed that the oil pressure drops to about fifteen when I put it in gear and drove it around(very short trip btw) and comes back up to a little less than forty in park ( I guess that might count as a drastic problem). It was sitting right at forty when I idled it in the yard. I just replaced the fuel pump that was leaking gas into the block along with the oil. I put 10/40 in to compensate for the likely drop in viscosity from the remain gassy oil (an old ford guy my father in law know recommended it).

The temp would sit at 180-190 idling in the yard. When driving it around got up to 210 ish which I'm told is a little high. Planning on flushing coolant and putting a new thermostat in it shortly, hoping that will help.

If anybody could give me some ideas on what I could/should be doing or insight form their experiences I'd really appreciate it.

Ryan

 

[Steve83]

If you didn't use a modern thermometer to get those numbers, I'd get something like this & confirm them. The stock gauge isn't all that accurate.

 

[DirtDonk]

If you had a lot of gas in the oil, or don't know how much went in, you can't just add a little more oil and call it good I would not think. I'd want to change out all the oil for new.
Yes, the gas will vaporize quicker, and a properly functioning PCV system will pull a lot of it out and re-burn it, but I'm not sure running an engine on gas-thinned oil is such a good idea.
New oil is just cheap insurance.

And what he said about the gauges. With one reading high and the other low, it's likely not an IVR issue, but unless you know the accuracy of the gauges, you can't troubleshoot with any integrity until you've determined their accuracy.

Paul

 

[75junebug]

The oil pressure sensors are prone to failure. A worn one will read right at idle and cold, and steadily drop as the engine warms up

 

[flaconinja]

Yeah, I changed the oil but couldn't get out every drop so went with the higher viscosity hoping the it would break down a bit with the leftover oil in it. It had a good quart of gas or so in the oil.

I just put a new oil pressure sensor in it so I really hope thats not the problem. Had a bunch of electrical problems getting the gauges working but with a ground from the gauge cluster to the dash and then from the dash to the body it seemed to work it out, but maybe that's still a problem. I wouldn't think thats it though.

I plan on getting a accurate heat reading as soon as possible and I think I'm going to go ahead and flush the system and replace some stuff. It's was sitting for awhile before I got it.

Also it has a 351 drop in it with header, a high rise manifold and a four barrel carb. It's crossed my mind that the cooling system might need some work to keep up but I'm not really sure.

Thanks for the feed back, it helps a lot to get some ideas floating around, please keep them coming.