Oil Light?? This is strange...

Reply #15 – April 10, 2007, 09:39:24 PM

I'm hoping it holds up for this year, as the odds are, it will go bracket racing this year. See, I normally drag race in the summer months, but last month, I had major shoulder surgery...so no shifting. So in order to go racing at all, I had to buy an automatic on the column, and I wanted a V8 Ford, when this '81 with the carb'd 302 showed up. Granny fresh with the low miles, and the a/c still works, so I couldn't pass it up for $250. It's a fox body and they tell me the interchanges are the same for the fox mustangs, cougars, ect. The plan is to run it as is for this season, then back to my regular car next season while I make this one my street sleeper. A 12 second Fox T bird with a/c would be a blast.

Nice thing about it as it stands, with a 2.79 rear end gear and a whopping 130 hp (probably closer to 100 the way it's running), it's about as slow as the sunrise and I doubt racing it will be any more abusive than it's previous owner. Should be deadly consistent though...and painfully slow. Going from a 12 second car to a 18 second car...sigh. But I can put it in drive and nail the throttle and at least stay sharp on the tree.

Jim - Vancouver is about 6 hours away for me, but it is tempting. If you still have it when I go to the Oregon coast in June, I may check with you and see if you still have it, although a roller motor would be a plus. Ideally, a moderate 351W would be good too. I had heard of a TSB on some Ford 302 motors with sludge? Think that could be part of the problem, it was for 302's built before some date in 1987. Any idea how hard it would be to change the oil pump with the motor in the car??

Eric - Thanks for the info. I'll certainly check that. Maybe neglect isn't the right word for this car. Granny was in Nevada, and it wasn't driven all that much. I think that NOT driving a car is as bad as rodding the day lights out of it, the motor needs to be worked a little or things like seals go bad. Maybe neglected is the better phrase. I would hope that at 77K miles, the bearings would be good too, but like Jim and you mentioned, it could be the pump.

Thanks guys for the great info, what a great place:)