Well I swapped out the relief valve springs... I removed the EMPI spring in the rear valve (dual relief case) and the 1 of the other springs I had felt (by gosh by golly method) to be about half way between the stock spring and the EMPI after market one so I put it in.
None of the springs I had were even close the right length for front relief valve (I tossed the bad stock spring) but the piston was about
1/4" longer than the rear valve so I replaced it with a shorter piston. I figured I could cut 1 turn off this spring later if the pressure was still too high.I replaced the damaged mechanical oil pressure gage this morning. Anyway this evening, I primed the oil filter, spun it on and cranked it down, checked & topped up the oil level. It was now or never... I fired it up, ran it for about a minute and waited for the oil pressure to come up and no farging pressure. I killed the engine, checked everything and ran it for another 30 seconds. Still no farging oil pressure. I'm about ready to flip out and while going over ever thing I notice the new oil pressure gage has the needle on the wrong side of the stopper pin. Good grief, I can't seem to win on this. Anyway I'm getting closer.
I know it's no longer blowing oil filters but I'm clueless about how much pressure it's running. To make things worse, it was vandalized again, this time some bastard burnt a spot on one of the new hoses to the oil filter. I'll take the oil pressure gage back tomorrow and get it replaced and buy a new chunk of oil hose. I'm pretty sure it's alright but I'm not going to drive it until I know what it's doing.
I'm stressing out about this and I'm thinking hard about stuffing it back in my brother in-law's barn for anther 6 years...
Tony