This is almost related.....but my red a white 86 bronco doesn't have a dip stick, but there's a weird reason. So I bought it from a kid for $1000, someone stripped the oil pan drain bolt and he followed through by completely screwing up the threads. So there it sat without oil until I bought it. So why doesn't it have a dip stick? The block is out of a 79 car, and it's a Mexican 302 there's no hole on side of the block for a dip stick, so the correct oil pan should have a dip stick in the side of it, but it didn't have the correct oil pan! And all I had was an 80s 302 oil pan that doesn't have a dip stick hole, so what did I do? I couldn't afford the correct oil pan at the time and they're hard to just come by, so I cleaned the oil pan I had, put 6 quarts of water in it, marked it at the level, drilled a hole and installed a 1in sight glass. So I just have to look under there from time to time.
Old Farmall tractors from the 40s and 50s have two drains on side of the oil pan that you open to see if it drips and that's how you know they're full.