Two members of our club, Mike Bender and Larry Young, have recently built Model T engines with full pressure oiling. This page shows the methods they used for plumbing their engines.  Both are variations on Fred Houston's idea of concealing all the plumbing internally and installing an oil filter in the deep sump.  The only external plumbing is the line to the oil pressure gauge which was not installed when these pictures were taken. 

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Mike Bender's Plumbing

Here are some photos of Mike Bender's plumbing for pressure oiling of his Mercury speedster engine.  As noted below, a few modifications were required after these photos were taken.  Mike also gives the advice "Don't forget to seal the main bolts!".

  External view with the deep sump installed

View through the inspection door

View with oil filter removed.  Due to space constraints Mike fabricated the oil filter block, which contains a relief valve and take off for the oil pressure gauge.  This relief valve didn't work, so it was later replaced with one from a GM oil pump.  Also, some tubes were later replaced with larger diameter tubing.

View with the pan and deep sump removed.  A VW oil pump is mounted on the back of the camshaft using an adapter supplied by Dan McEachern.  A check valve was later added immediately above the oil pickup.

Larry Young's Plumbing

This engine also used a VW oil pump and adapter and a deep sump supplied by Dan McEachern. This type of deep sump requires the use of the spacer and inspection door, just like an A-crank engine without a deep sump.  Larry did not use the deep sump to hold oil, but only to conceal the oil filter.

This shows the engine with plumbing and deep sump installed.  Note the oil pump mounted on the back of the camshaft and the adjustable pressure relief valve that empties into the valve chamber.  This idea was taken from the way Model A engines are  usually plumbed.

Upside down view of the engine with the deep sump removed.

Bulkhead fittings were made by running a 9/16 inch fine die down a 1/4 inch NPT nipple.  

These photos show the plumbing exposed by removing the pan.  Two distribution blocks were made from a block of aluminum. The one upstream of the filter helps to turn the corner.  The one downstream of the filter has 6 connections, including a second relief valve to insure adequate flow capacity.  The tubing runs along the corners of the pan and some of these bends are very difficult to make in such a tight space. AN fittings were used throughout.

A baffle and screen were fabricated for the pickup.  Hopefully, this will insure that oil is not swept away from the pickup.  A check valve is immediately above the pickup to insure the pump will remain primed.  This rather large check valve was selected after a lot of flow experiments.  Smaller check valves did not have adequate flow capacity.  The pressure gauge will be plumbed into the T fitting downstream of the filter.