Oil Pump ByPass question

[jim galli]

'38 coupe with V8-60. It sat for 51 years and we woke it up a week or so ago. Did all the usual stuff in consideration of an engine that has sat that long.

At the first couple of starts, and btw, it sounds fantastic, I had very believable oil pressure on the dash guage. I've not hooked up any mechanical guages yet. But the dash was in the 15 - 25 psi area which seemed about right to me. We didn't have the radiator or belts in place, so just ran it less than a minute or so, a few times.

Today we re-installed radiator and belt / fan and started it and let it idle and warm up to op temp. But the oil pressure guage pegged way out past the '50' and stayed that way until shut down.

Does that sound like oil pump bypass? I suppose it could be electrical also. A shorted sending unit? Sorry I didn't do my part and put a mechanical guage on before asking the experts here.

[Ronnie]

Confirm the pressure with a mechanical gauge before jumping to conclusions.

R

[Brian]

'Does that sound like oil pump bypass'? Possibly, but follow Ronnies advice to confirm.
Does that look like a nice coupe? Most definitely, a cool survivor! Good on ya!
'and btw, it sounds fantastic'
Too right it does!! Enjoy!

[jim galli]

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Thanks all.

Well, the mechanical gauge says a steady 20 - 25 pounds so I'm figuring the sending unit died a natural old age death. The dash gauge returns to zero as it should when power is removed and stayed at zero once the sender was out of the loop.