Oil drain. Pump Priming

[Tegriffic]

I’m after any advice / experience anyone may have re this please. The engine is a 4.3 (pre serp). The car has had to stand unused for nearly 11 months.

Having started her up oil light remaining on and it was quickly obvious that the all the oil has drained back to the sump which is apparently something that’s common with the pre cat engines.

I know obviously need to prime the pump and I can see that there are two common approaches having packed the pump with vasoline which is either to spin the engine on the starter or remove the distributer and spin the pump with a drill.

I’m favouring the drill because I don’t really want to spin the engine with the starter if I think there’s no oil in the galleries but my understanding is that the drill approach can be a bit hit and miss and of course means likely knocking out the timing.

I’d be interested for any advice, or experiences anyone has had with either of these methods and it anyone has managed to fill the oil galleries by any other means before spinning the engine (I’ve seen various other approaches on non-Rover engines of pumping oil around by removing sensors and accessing the oil pathways.).

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Belle427]

If you mark the distributor to engine before removal you cant go far wrong really, the priming tool is the less fuss option.

[pmc_3]

When I did the first start of my pre-serp Chimaera which hadn't been run for 10 years, I just changed the oil, prefilled the oil filter and then spun it over with spark plugs removed and with fuel pump isolated a few times until the oil light went out.

[Steve_D]

Spinning the pump with a drill is straight forward. You will know that you have been successful as the drill will be nearly ripped from your hands when the pressure comes up.

Steve

[waggy]

Agree with above. Use a drill. I had my Griff jacked up on the Driver side only, for about 2 weeks whilst servicing the starter motor. when i started it, no oil pressure. Tried taking out plugs and spinning on starter still no pressure. Took out distributer and used drill on pump and within 10 secs full oil pressure.

Remember to Mark distributor, draw a line on engine where the cap clip meets engine block. Remove distributor cap. As you pull distributor out it will turn rotor arm backwards about 10deg. Due to the spiral gears. Mark rotor arm position on body of distributor, so when you refit distributor it goes back into same position. Easy when you done it a few times.

Good luck

Edited by waggy on Wednesday 1st May 06:38