Sudden Loss of Oil Pressure

JGC403 said

Put it all back together yesterday, pulled the distributor and primed the oil system with a drill, pump built pressure and the gauge worked, so I don't understand what happened. Could a high volume oil pump with the external pick-up suck the pan dry? and with the oil being cold just wasn't draining back to the oil pan fast enough? I can't think of any other explanation.

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Yes a high volume pump will suck a pan dry but you would have to be 3 quarts or more low on oil. The engine would have to be higher than idle rpm for this to occur. This happened to my 440 this year and I first noticed it with oil pressure gauge flucuating between 75 to 50 psi at 2000 rpm and I was down on oil. The engine had a slight oil leak at the rear seal retainer due to the engine rebuilder using no side seals but a lot of black RTV. I fixed the leak and modified my oil dip stick by drilling 1/8" holes from the add to full lines. This was because the oil was always clean and it was hard to read on the stick.