8BA Dip Stick Length and Oil Level

[Steve in Denver]

Basically I do not have a dip stick. The one at the top of the picture is mine and if you can see it in the small picture, it is pretty corroded and there are no marks on it. I have a friend with several extras, we just are not sure which one is right. When I use one that is the same length as mine, as shown in the picture, that is where it reads with 4 in the pan. The 16 inch long dip stick and the long tube don't show any reasonable reading either. I can't remember what it was when I used the long pair, but the reading didn't make any since either.

If I know what the correct amount of oil is, I will take a combination of sticks and tubes and cut the long tube so it shows the correct FULL level on the stick.

Again, this is a 1950 8BA truck motor (I think it is a truck motor because it has truck water pumps on it) in a '36 so the pan that is on the motor is not necessarily the correct pan.


If I know how much oil should be in the pan, that would solve all my problems.

[51 MERC-CT]

Originally Posted by Steve Kennedy

So if I add another quart, that will make it 5 in the pan and one in the filter. Is that correct for a 1950 truck motor?

Put 5 qts. in the engine.
Run the engine till the oil has time to fill the filter.
Check the level on the stick.
That is your full line with 5 qts. of oil in the engine.

[Scotty's 52 F3]

My 1952 8RT takes 5 quarts.

[rotorwrench]

The 8RT-6754-B oil dip stick tube is 8 21/64-inches long and was used for the duration on pickups of the 8BA era. The dip stick P/N 8RT-6750-B is 17 7/8-inches long. These were used in the truck pan equipped engines from 1948 thru 1952. The pan changed in 1953 to the stepped bottom type for the smaller 100 series trucks so the dip stick & tube were different.

Different pans had different tube & dip stick assemblies. Ford cars were different from Mercury cars and so on so FoMoCo put the P/N prefix on the sticks so they could be identified. Most of this info is in the parts books for the different models but it varies from year of print on the chassis parts catalogs. As changes were made it was more important to properly ID the different stuff.

[49r]

4.5 imperial quarts fills my F1 8BA (stock dipstick) after an oil filter cartridge change, which includes emptying the canister. 4.5 Imp quarts on the convertor = 5.4 US quarts.

[rotorwrench]

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The half of a US quart it about what remains in the oil filter an hour after you shut the engine down.

[Steve in Denver]

Sounds like I need to find another 11 inch dip stick tube. Anyone got one they want to part with? How Much?