VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - GENERAL Mechanical - Engine, Trans, etc Bad oil filter?

My 57 235 was completely rebuilt but after a few years heard a rattle so I found it was cylinder #2 so off came the pan,I found that all the rod journals were severely scored and the bearings down to copper with about only 10,000 miles. I just put new bearings and put it back togather to deal with another time and since found a replacement engine,oil pressure at idle was getting down to 5 to 10 and going down the road would not even peg the 30# gauge and since it was time to change the oil I disconnected the filter and the idle pressure is now 15 to 20 and even when hot pegs that gauge where even with fresh oil it would not do that before. Engine looks to have been starved for oil at one time even though it was prelubed before initial fire up so I got wondering if the oil filter plumbed wrong or something wrong with it could have caused the damage,the damage is done but just disconnecting the filter seems to have improved the oil pressure a bunch and thinking about not using the filter on the replacement engine.

Interesting situation with the higher pressure with the oil filter disconnected. I wonder if there is a restrictor missing in your oil filter connections. Or maybe the passages in the block and to the rocker arms are blocked. So the oil takes the path of least resistance. If the filter is less resistance than the other functions then the filter gets most of the oil. That would explain why the engine looks starved and the pressure is higher with the feed line to the filter plugged off.

Remember that oil pressure is the result of resistance to flow.

When it gets pulled I am going to take it all apart and try to see what went wrong,I also had problems getting oil to the rocker arms at first.