Thread: oiling problem

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I have a 350 chevy that I pulled out of a car several years ago. It's been inside and sealed up. When I pulled it it had good oil pressure. I need a temporary engine for my T so I pulled this one out of storage, I replaced the oil pump and pickup and put in a crane energizer cam and lifters (all new). When I went to prime the engine I am getting no oil to the top end. NONE! I looked down in when I was spinning the pump and could see oil moving well, I just have nothing coming out of the pushrods. Any suggestions?

Ron

This is gonna be a dumb question, but are you spinning it the correct direction? SBC distributors turn clockwise, SBF turn cc wise.

Don

No dumb questions here, I did spin it clockwise, I even tried backwards. No luck.

Ron

Hook up a temporary pressure gauge while you spin it with your drill. Sometimes it takes a while for oil to get to the rockers.

Don

I have the pressure gauge in the car ( not mechanical) and got no reading from that either, I did spin it for about a minute with my cordless and then switched to my electric drill for about another couple of minutes, that seemed like way more time than it has ever taken to get oil to the top before.

Ron

Are you using a Chevy primer? The collar blocks an oil passage. If not you'll never get oil to the top.

I'm using the same primeing tool i've always used, and it's always worked, if I look down the hole when i'm spinning I can see the oil flowing it just isn't coming to the top. No I did not prime the pump first, what effect could that make?

Ron

My priming tool is just a straight stem with a collar, I think I will dig out an old distributor and strip it to use for priming.

Ron