Bad Hadraulic Lifters, Maybe?

You wanna talk about cheap? Hit a 18" piece of 3/8 allthread with a cut off wheel to make the end a hex shape...now THAT is cheap, and I bet you got something like that laying around the shop on a sunday night.....Your not screwed, your just low on oil pressure. Get it primed before you start it again and see what you got in pressure afterwords. A tossed lifter from a broken pushrod will cause the oil pressure to bleed out of the open lifter hole, little to nill oil pressure will register.