Ford 302 engine oil dipstick - 1995 OMC Cobra, Ford 302, VolvoSX

[Lpgc]

Recently realised I've been reading my dipstick wrong. It has a hashed area with top-up and full marks but well above the hashed area there are 2 stamped indents / pips.

The book says the engine takes 6 quarts of oil. If I put 6 quarts in it the dipstick reads well above the hashed area and the oil level comes to the lower stamped indent. If I only put 3 quarts in it the level might come to the top of the hashed area but then the engine would only have half the oil in it that it's supposed to have.

This isn't because the pan is full of stuff or becauses I didn't pump all the oil out, I rebuilt the engine so I know it was empty before I put any oil in. After building the engine I thought I'd put 6 quarts in, checked the level and it read overfilled according to the hashed area, pumped all the oil out, refilled with 4 quarts and it was still above the hashed area but 4 quarts was the least amount of oil I dare run the engine with, so I made my own mark on the stick at 4 quarts.

Why would the dipstick be like this? Is it because it was near the end of the model line and they were scraping the parts bin?

 

[rolmops]

It may just be a dipstick that does not belong to this engine , but one from a different engine that was put in there, or the outer housing is shorter than it is supposed to be, which will cause the stick to go deeper inside the oilpan
If the book tells you to put in six quarts, than that is what is should be.
Just check online what the dipstick is supposed to look like and compare to what you have.

 

[airshot]

Put in the required amount if oil then mark your dipstick accordingly. Never know which, what kind of dipstick you have, so use the correct amount of oil and mark the dipstick accordingly !!

 

[Lpgc]

Thanks for the replies.

I'll come back to this thread and post a pic of the dipstick.

I don't think I'm the first to encounter this, I watched a Michael Romer YouTube vid in which he changes the engine oil on a Ford engine'd OMC Cobra setup, in the comments section someone else said they put in the supposed correct amount of oil and it read well over the dipstick full mark. Someone replied to that and said it must be because he hadn't pumped all the oil out or his oilpan must be full of crud, but that definitely isn't the case with mine. It could be the wrong dipstick but the stamp marks above the hashed area don't look like they were done by a previous owner.