Question: do 300ci sixes ever have issues with cracked or loose oil
pickups?  I am seeing some symptoms that lead me to believe that I might
be dealing with something like that.  I should probably hook up a good
mechanical oil pressure gauge to verify this but here's the Cliff's notes:

Bought truck from (non-car-guy) coworker.  Seemed to be fine other than
a few evident issues (coolant overflow system, shocks, front wheel
bearings, possibly front wheel balance, needs transmission service)
Drove for a couple trips to friend's place in Annapolis and back.  One
evening noticed rod bearing type noise while accelerating away from stop
lights.  Parked truck in driveway, checked oil, appeared to be low (it
really wasn't.  I discovered later that this truck is apparently real
sensitive to slopes when checking the oil, and my driveway is sloped for
its whole length.  But this becomes relevant later on.)

Found two quarts of cheap oil under workbench.  Put in truck and dropped
 truck off at garage on corner.  Told mechanic to tell me how bad it
was.  He called and told me that he never heard any kind of rod noise
and that the truck appeared to be fine, although there was some minor
work that he wanted to do on it yadda yadda yadda.  I told him no
thanks, I want to trust this thing before I start sinking money into
maintenance, I already spent $200 on new shocks just the day before.  so
he added some "BG oil treatment" and I gave him a few bucks for that and
his time and went on my way.  He was right, truck did seem fine.  At
that time I went ahead and modded my gauge cluster (bypassed the 20 ohm
resistor) so that I could install the sending unit I'd bought for an
older Ford truck with a real gauge, so that my "idiot light gauge" would
actually act as a real gauge.  Drove around for a bit, oil pressure
behaved as normal.  But when I had occasion to actually park on a flat
surface and check the oil, I discovered it appeared to be about a quart
and a half over full, so it might have only been half a quart low
instead of the two quarts that it appeared to be low before.

So I decided I would just change the oil rather than try to drain off
only some of it and probably make a mess because I didn't know what bulk
crap the PO's garage was putting in there anyway.  Bought two gallons of
Rotella 30W and a Purolator filter, did the deed in my driveway, added
four quarts, drove to a perfectly flat surface, checked the oil, added
exactly two more quarts, that brought it up to the top of the hashed
area on the dipstick.  That jives with the owner's manual, so now I know
where to check my oil (parking space in front of the playground at the
far end of the street.  Just for future reference.)  Parked truck in
driveway.

Tonight, I came home and found that a gauge cluster I'd ordered had
arrived (I ordered a gauge cluster with a tach for the truck, before all
this oil pressure/rod bearing mess started.  I figured since I'd paid
for it I might as well install it just so I could see how fast the
engine was turning while I was being paranoid about the rod bearings.)
So after modding as before and installing the new gauge cluster I took
it for another drive, again to pick up SWMBO at the Metro station.
(this truck is getting more miles on it in the evenings going to the
Metro station while I'm testing out whatever I did to it the previous
couple hours than it is hauling anything.)  I noticed that at a couple
stop signs when pulling away as the engine RPMs increased so did the oil
pressure, but sometimes without any reason the oil pressure would drop
back down to about what it was at idle.  It did not do this all the
time, only some of the time - but I thought I heard the beginnings of
the "death rattle" again.  I will try reinstalling my old cluster just
in case it's something to do with the OP gauge freaking me out - or
maybe I will just bite the bullet and buy a mechanical OP gauge and
temporarily install it (that really offends my sensibilities, as I have
several good ones in my friend's garage but it's 50 miles away) so I can
see once and for all what is going on.  But based on the fact that I
didn't have any issues a couple days ago and all I did was change the
oil to bring it down from "overfull" to "full" and then swap out the
gauge cluster, I'm seriously thinking I have a pickup issue.

Any better ideas, y'all?  I guess I ought to be relieved, but then
again, the thought of pulling the pan on this beast still makes me want
to pay someone to take care of it for me.  I've spent too much time
working on cars, I would rather concentrate on fun stuff like my '55
Stude rather than what's supposed to be my beater work truck.

nate