You will be looking for metal shavings or particles. Look close into the inside grove of the filter.

I don't see anything. I even took a magnet and did not get and shavings. The oil did seem a little thick around the filter.

any other ideas? it is a fram tg5 filter.

GOODT told you right, You need 40w oil. I have had great use with Valvoline Racing 40w oil. I uses the Napa 1061 oil filters that are made from wix. They are painted black which looks much better than a orange filter. Pill off the napa decal and you done.

my manual says do not use straight weight oils. The problem I'm having now is not the oil. I have not changed oil. I have always used mobile one 15-50. My pressure was around 80# and went to 20# and will peak out at 22#. I ran all last year and and run all day and never drop below 50# in july. This is something wrong, not oil thickness.

If you jumped on it while the oil was still cold, you may have popped the pressure relief on the pump open and it stuck.

Have you tried a manual pressure gauge? I had a problem with my oil pressure sender once and it hung out from zero to 20 to 0 to 30 to 0 Etc. Changed the sender and all was well. Merc installs them down on the 3/8 rear plug that cars use for oil coolers. Try changing that, to see if the problem corrects. It has a wire with a 90 connection and hang verticle upside down from a tee.

I changed the filter and tested today. It was the filter. Pressure went up and jryan and myself drove around for a cople of hours and no problems. I will never use a fram again. I had never even heard of a problem like that.

Good news! Glad it was something small.

I'm glad it was not anything major and I learned something