No Oil Pressure or Low Oil Pressure on Your 354 Perkins

Nothing worse than building your Perkins 354 engine.

You have to start the engine to find out you have low oil pressure or even worse you have no oil pressure at all.

Always check oil pressure using a manual gauge off the main oil gallery

Where did you go wrong?

Hopefully what I am about to write may shine some light on your problem.

Oil pickup

It is common for the flange to bow where it bolts on the oil pump, this will need to be filled flat and a new gasket fitted

Oil pump

There are two types:

1. Normal oil pump Part No:41314131  Cross over tube Part No: 33261124  67mm long
2. High-velocity oil pump Part No: 41314067 Cross over tube Part No: 33247116  43mm long
3. They should be checked for clearance and ensure there are no damage or score marks on the rotor. We recommend to always replace oil pumps.
4. Ensure New O-rings were replaced or fitted to the oil pump and the relied valve body
5. Ensure the cross over tube is not worn. Note there is 2 cross over TUBES to suit the 2 different oil pumps one is short 43mm and the other long 67mm. Do not mix-match these tubes as you can fit the short into the incorrect pump and have no oil pressure at all.

Relief valve

1. Check the relief valve for wear, shiny and dull spots and make sure the valve is not scored.
2. Check the spring and make sure it is not damaged.
3. If you replaced the relief valve body make sure you have the correct one.
4. One is blocked on one side and the other type open to handle a cross over pipe. The relief valve body depends on the location of your oil filter. Some people just think you can swap the filter heads from one side to the other not realizing about the oil plumbing that is required internally

Oil filter

1. Fill the oil filter with oil, this helps with the initial priming of the engine (if you assembled the engine with assembly grease you will be fine on initial start-up).
2. If your oil filter screws on from above, not from below this are mainly used  in tractors make sure you use the oil filter with the non-return drain valve as part of the filter (2654407)

Cylinder block

There are 2 oil gallery core plugs.

1. One is located at the rear of the block and is covered by the bell housing if fitted. If this is not fitted you will have an oil leak at the rear
2. The 2^nd is located at the front of the engine next to be they were the aux driveshaft is located and is hidden once the timing cover is bolted on. If front oil gallery plug is not fitted the oil will fall back into the sump

Crankshaft

1. Hopefully, when you built the engine you checked the clearances between the main & big end bearings using plastiguage of an internal micrometer when the bearings were fitted. The manual will give you a clearance spec from, 1.5 thou up to 4 thou.
2. If you have the excessive clearance you will need to check the main tunnel size and big end bearing size. If the measurements are correct go to step 3. If they seem are incorrect. Your off of to see your local engine machine shop
3. You will have to measure the crankshaft to ensure the correct crankshaft size, Standard, .010, .020, .040 and .060 thou undersize. If the wrong bearings are fitted you can have excessive clearance and the engine will still turn or the engine will lock up once you tension the bearings.
4. Then check to see the bearings used to match the crankshaft sizes. A good practice is to check the bearings for markings  to confirm their size before fitting
5. Once the engine is running the crankshaft and bearings do not touch as there is a film of oil between the crankshaft and the bearing. That is why this clearance is critical.

Rocker shaft

1. Fit the new square section seal  (not the O-ring seal ) is to be fitted under the bevel of the oil feed pipe to the rocker shaft

Check out our how to run in your engine blog post.

Finally, did you use the correct grade oil?

We have all these parts in stock, contact us today