Hanky is correct , Your pickup coil which is in the distributor will cause your injectors not to pulse and not turn the fuel pump on when it's cranking. As far as your losing oil pressure , it's most likely the bearings are worn and as the oil heats up you lose pressure. You can try a thicker oil it may nurse it along a little while. If you do replace the main and rod bearings , go a head and put an oil pump in as well, but don't waste your time just putting the oil pump in without the bearings, you will be pulling the oil pan back off.

 

I haven't posted in a while, so I'm going to update again. I've been going through this truck and replacing lots of things. So the reason the truck wouldn't run was a bad ground. I had it running and was going around checking the wires, I wiggled one and the truck shut off. So I fixed the ground and then it would stay running but was running really rough. I put a set of fairly new fuel injectors in it that came out of a 351. I made sure they all sprayed. While I had it apart I replaced the coolant temp sensor and the map sensor, and when I put it back together, the truck started with a shot of carb clean and stayed running and sounded pretty good. So I've been driving it to work every day since, but still having problems. So here's what I'm experiencing. First of all, the truck won't start when it's cold without a shot of carb clean. Then it starts, but it runs rough and smokes out of the tailpipes for up to five minutes. Then the motor jumps up to like 1800 rpms, and the truck smooths out and stops smoking out of the exhaust, but still misses occasionally on both sides. Earlier this week I checked all my fluids and I was a quart low on oil, so I added a quart, friday I had to add another half a quart. The truck seemed like it was having issues on friday because the miss that I'm having became much more frequent, and it's on both sides. So I parked it. I compression tested all the cylinders, and they were all between 165 and 180 psi. None of the spark plugs have oil on them I have put 500 miles on them. Oh yeah, I went out and bought a mechanical oil pressure gauge, and installed it. When the engine is hot, the mechanical guage shows 25 psi when i hold it at about 2500 rpm, then when I let it drop down to idle, the oil pressure drops to nothing. I'm curious what you guys think, particularly about it not starting cold, why it would miss like it does, and about the oil pressure issues. Thank you.

 

So I took it to a shop in town to get a second opinion. Hated to do it but I did. Here's what they said, I'm curious about what you guys think. They said that they thought I had a "spun harmonic balancer" and that was, in their opinion, why it wouldn't start. Also he said "Fords hate Autolite plugs". Has anyone else ever heard this? Lastly, as others have said, they thought that my oil pressure issue is rod and main bearings.