Anyone hear of bolting the oil pump to the block without using a gasket? I stopped at the local Ford dealer today to buy the gasket that goes between the oil pump body and the block. Two parts guys and a guy from their machine shop told me there is not supposed to be a gasket there, just metal on metal. Their parts book didn't list a gasket either. My Ford shop manual from 1973 shows a gasket is to be installed and the directions tell you to install a new gasket. Every 289/302 I've seen had one. Is this something that was eliminated in later years?
I found that the inlet tube gasket was pretty easy to track down, but I too had a hell of a time finding the mounting flange gasket, until I finally got the NAPA dealer here to order some for me. Can't say what the result would be of installing it without, I didn't want to take a chance on it, but I'm sure someone else here will know.
Thats why I keep sheets of gasket material laying around..............never know when your gonna need a gasket that is hard to find or not sold seperately.
I do not use the oil pump gasket as long as the mating surfaces of the pump and block are flat. If there is loss of pressure/volume through leakage, it is very minimal. I leave it out to minimize the opportunity of gasket failure. My motors have all had a minumim of 50 pounds of oil pressure at idle and 70-80 at full throttle. Bottom line is do whatever you feel comfortable with.
I had to replace the oil pump on the maverick when it still had the 250 a cuple years ago. When I took the old pump out there wasn`t no gasket and the new pump didn`t come with one. It was still getting over 70 psi at 3,000 rpm when I had to pull it .
