I'm in Las Vegas working on my buddy's 425 blown nailhead powered '32 hiboy and we've got a wierd problem - no oil pressure. We've had the pan off, the pump works fine, the internal plug in front of the distributor is in place, the pickup is 1/4 " from the pan bottom. running the primer with an air drill (clockwise) for 20 minutes didn't do squat. No pressure at the oil pressure port, no oil to the rockers, nothing. The engine was ***embled some time ago with what appears to be Lubriplate, but none of it appears to be congealed or anything, some of it is dissolved in the oil (Comp break-in oil). Any strange things we should be looking at?
Not familiar with nailheads, but are they one of the ones where the distributor has to be in place to block a port before they will get oil pressure ? Dumb question, but are you spinning the preluber the right direction ? I have done it because some go clockwise and some go ccw. Pull the oil filter and see if oil is getting that far. If all that fails I think a galley plug may be missing, allowing oil to just dump out. My sbf blew one out and oil pressure immediately went to zero. Don Update: I found this on the net: This is a direct quote from the '65 Buick Ch***is Service Manual (section 2-53): "5. If gear end clearance is satisfactory, remove gears and pack gear pocket full of petroleum jelly. Do not use ch***is lube!!! 6. Re-install gears so petroleum jelly is forced into every cavity of the gear pocket and between the teeth of the gears. Place new gasket in position. NOTE: This step is very important. Unless the pump is packed with petroleum jelly, it may not prime itself when the engine is started. "
Don, thanks for the message - I saw that Vaseline deal last night while I was looking at Buick sites. Sounds funny but if the manual says so........ The dist turns clockwise - thus we turned the primer clockwise, but we actually tried (for a couple minutes) turning it ccw - no joy.
We packed 'er full of Vasoline - tried it again - no pressure. I don't know if the distributor has to be in but it doesn't look like there's any machined surfaces down in the dist hole (we looked with a borescope and various mirrors) to seal up. I modified a Chevy primer to work - we're sure it engaged correctly, we're turning the right direction, etc. Strange.
Hmmm. No oil pressure and not even flow to the rockers. Have you tried removing the oil filter to see if any oil is coming that far ? That generally is the first stop for oil. You could have a messed up oil filter that isn't allowing oil to get past it. Do you feel at any point the drill motor slowing down any ? Don
This might sound dumb, but here is something else you can do. ****on everything up and put oil in the pan. Remove the oil pressure sender and fab up a piece of clear tubing taped tightly into your shop vac hose. The clear tubing will allow you to see when oil starts flowing so you can stop. (Ace Hardware carries clear tubing) Put the clear tubing tightly over the hole where the sender went and start the vac up. It should be able to draw oil from the pan into the block and give you a prime. Then you can do your drill motor routine to completely fill the system. It might take a long time to get oil to the rockers and I understand Buick rocker shafts have to be indexed so that oil can enter them. Don
Is there any oil feed holes up top where you could add oil to the pressure side? Run the pump backwards and see if it will **** oil down to the pump from the above port, it just may be enough to start it. Is the pickup tube and pump above the oil? What I mean is the joint where they hook together, can it be ****ing air? Any resistance to the drill motor?
Thanks everyone for the help - we pulled the lines off the fabbed adapter (at the block) and put a hose on the "out" side - got oil flow. chased it back to the remote filter mount and looked for the usual "in" and "out" markings on the mount - there are none. Yep, you guessed it by now - we had the -10 AN lines switched on the remote mount and the anti-backflow valve in the filter must have worked well. P***ing this along in case anybody else might make this (foolish) mistake
At least it was an easy fix. Thanks for coming back on and letting us know what you found, it really helps us all learn. Don
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