No oil pressure.......

[jhines]

Yea, so I just finished my engine rebuild and stuck the engine back in and hooked everything up last night. I mounted all my I/C piping and got it ready for break-in, but when I started the engine.....no oil pressure ! I immediately shut the engine off and pulled the oil filter to see if it was circulating and there was only the small amount of oil that I prime the filter with. So the oil system is not circulating oil from what I can tell.
I am pretty new to the DSM world, but in my experience, that would be the oil pump that is clogged or just locked up. Now, I bought a '91 short block from a local guy and it had the 6-bolt oil pump/front case on it already. So all that I did was cleaned it up and made sure it spun freely with no grabbing or noises(and it all checked out).
Has anyone out there had this happen and is it indeed the oil pump that needs to be replaced? My next step is to now pull the engine back out and pull the front case and put my "known good" 7-bolt oil pump onto the 6-bolt front case.
If anyone has any suggestions about what this could be or anything, let me know so O can try that before I pull the engine back out and have to deal with all that headache again.
Thanx guys,
-Hines

 

[wolf20043]

You can try a couple of things, as it sounds like you did not prime the pump itself with some type of lube. You can:a)pull the timing belt and oil pump gear to get to the castle plug, use a 12mm socket and drill to turn the oil pump till it starts to flow. or b) Remove the motor fuse from the positive battery cable and turn it over for 10- to 15 seconds at a time till it starts to flow as well. Hope it helps.
Mike

 

[jhines]

I did the whole "prime" thing because I tore my turbo completely down and knew I had to prime it up, so I take it the pump should have primed at the same time. All that I did was fill the engine with oil and left the plug wires off until I had attempted to start the car about 4 times for 10 seconds per time, so I assumed that everything was primed. I have talked with one other guy who said to try and pump 1/2 quart of oil into my pump through the oil cooler/filter housing and then try to crank the car again and see if the pump is working then. He makes since becuase he said that the pump could be cavitating and basically just has air pockets everywhere. But the only thing I see as a problem there is this......the pump is not brand spankin new. It was on the short block that I bought and had been ran several months earlier. So the way I took it was to treat it as if it were just a routine service pump, not "out of the box" new. I don't know if it makes a difference, but I guess I will try to pump oil into the unit before I pull the engine again.
But is there anything else that this could be? It only makes since to me that it is the oil pump itself and could really be nothing else.
But thanx man ,
-Hines

If you have heard of or had this problem before.....please talk to me here....

 

[GTM]

I did the whole "prime" thing
...
If you have heard of or had this problem before.....please talk to me here....

A year ago one member had similar problem that lasted through several dozen posts. He was a H/S student taking an Auto shop class and his instructor was also involved, unfortunately after 2-3 weeks he dissapeared and never heard the solution. I was suspect the pickup pipe had been damaged or the gasket not installed correctly. There had been some oil pan damage in the past.

Permit me to scold you for not using a battery drill on the balance shaft after the head and hydraulic lifters were installed. It would have been 5 minutes out of your life and you would have filled the lifters/lash adjuster after the cams were timed. With the VC cover off it will squirt oil a good 6' when all is primed so you have to cover them with rags. You can still do this but the timing cover has to come off and the belt removed.

The pump has an overpressure relief valve which could have stuck open, it comes across the inner timing cover under pressure to the filter housing where there is another pressure relief valve which return the oil to the pan and is set at a lower pressure than the pump relief. He would get a nominal amount of oil when using the drill from the pump at the filter so something was seriously wrong.

If you don't want to pull the timing cover you could pull the oil pressure sender and use a drill operated plastic pump ($15) with proper fittings to pressurize the system so you see oil from the hydraulic lash adjusters. Then crank to start with or without the pressure sender installed.

You can actually use a 3/8" drive speed handle on the balance shaft and get oil pressure this way if all is right.

Keep us posted on what you find.
Cheers,
GTM

 

[jhines]

GTM, I have a guy who is gonna give me a heads-up on how to do it, but he said to prime the oil pump by pumping 1/2 qt. of oil through the oil sender into the oil filter housing and that should prime the pump. And yes, shame on me.....but I thought that you onlt primed a pump like that if it was brand new. I have been told to just prime stuff by disabling the ignition and cranking the car over a few times. But yes, I hope this is all that is wrong with my engine. Is there any way to tell if the pump itself has went bad? I tried spinning it and it seemed fine with no grabbing or noises, so I installed it. The guy I got the motor from only pulled it because he blew the head gasket(as he said). But I am going to pull the sender and try to pump 1/2 qt. into the pump using a tranny fill tube and pump. I think that will work and I have others who say it should work just fine also.
Thanx man,
-Hines

i'll let you know what the outcome of this whole thing is. And one other thing, I did the 1G CAS swap and haw exactly do you set that thing correctly? Just like a old distributor car? Loosen it and run the car while playing with it until you get the engine to idle right and the RPM in the range that you want it?