I get nervous when my oil pressure stays above 40, as it does sometimes when it is very cold. I worry that the relief valves are not opening correctly. On the road, fully warmed up, my dual relief valve 1600 engines run between 30 and 40 psi. At idle the pressure drops to 20--lower if really hot. I had an engine once that dropped to under 5 psi at idle when it was hot. After checking the relief valves, changing the pump, and changing the oil cooler, I decided that the bearings must be worn. That engine was also very noisy. Another thing, a mistake that the previous owner of my blue van made, one that caused the engine to fail, was to hook up the smog equipment wrong. He had it set up so that air pressure from the fan was routed through the carbon canister, and from there into the block via the port on the generator pedestal by the oil filler cap. The result was very high oil pressure, which was really air pressure! The engine always leaked out the valve cover gaskets and the main seal. J. Robert Lee, Ph.D. jrl@netcom.com '68 bug '71 blue bus with sunroof '71 blue and white bus with sunroof '72 super beetle
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