We've stuffed a '76 455 into a '70 Lark while the funds are low for a good 455 build. The engine ran fine when we bought it, no rattles, etc. Now we fire it in the car after sitting for about a year and there's no oil to the top end. We primed it from the on the distributor gear and no oil through any of the pushrods. Should it require packing the pump with vaseline? Or might we have issues with a plugged pickup? I know, we should have pulled the pan and cleaned the pickup screen. Thanks.
I agree... Pack it. It may not be creating the suction needed to get the oil flow going. The priming isn't going to be of use if you've got a dry pump. That's no different than what's happening when the car is running with a dry pump - spinning air. If you do that, then you get no oil moving - you've got deeper problems. My mom's 62 Skylark convert (215 V8) would lose prime from sitting a few months at a time.
Gary, Do you have oil pressure? You say you fired the engine up. If it had no pressure, you'd be hearing all kinds of bearing noise after a few seconds. I would put a gauge on it, and see if you had pressure or not. There's nothing to be gained by packing the pump if you have pressure. What grade of oil are you using? It may take awhile for an engine(especially one thats been sitting) to get oil through the lifters and up the pushrods so you can see it.. You have to at least get it up to normal operating temps, but you can't do that with no oil pressure.
I lost a 75 motor recently because I did not prime pump. I have heard that vasoline and axle grease are not the way to go because of their resistance to assimilating into the oil. White Lithium grease or heavy assembly lube is what I used when I reassembled this motor. Caught pressure immediately and I didn't even preload through the distributor. I have had several episodes of pickup clogging. One was rust in the bottom of the pan (a long time sitter) and the other was a torn up front seal.
First off, it's a 70k motor from a '76 Riv or such. Ran smooth, no rattles on startup when we bought it with a '71 350/350 trans and an 8.5" 2.56 posi for $300. It sat for about a year with no oil in it and we decided to stab it in a '70 Skylark my son-in-law got for $800 so he could drive the car while he's saving cash to build a good 462 (and to get the Lark the hell outta my shop!). Hell, we didn't even scrape any grease off the thing. So we install it, dump whatever oil (clean oil) we have laying around the shop into it, run it without an oil pressure gauge and it's rattling, so we shut it down, pack the pump, spin the pump for a loooonnnnggg time and barely get a dribble out of the pushrods. Damn, looks like the pickup is plugged, we gotta pull the pan, etc. But the mechanical gauge we had on there now shows 60+ psi so we know it's getting that far so how could it be the pickup? Well, it couldn't. So Mike says, maybe that 20w/50 we poured in there is too thick, let's put some 10w/30 in there. So, the old guy is thinking, "ok, beats lifting the engine and pulling the pan". I'm skeptical but I'm all for what's easy. Change the oil and filter, pump it up again just for kicks and finally get oil through the last pushrod. Fire it up, rattles a few seconds, like most 455s I ever saw, spits oil all over the inner fenders, quiets down and purrs. We put the rocker covers back on and moved on to what's next. I'm outta beer so celebrated with a Mountain Dew and a Squirt. :beer
ou: outa beer? outa beer? HOW COULD YOU LET SOMETHING LIKE THAT HAPPEN!!!!LOLOL glad you got it goin.!
I have got to throw in this one, way back in the early 80's a old buick machanic told me if your buick is sitting along time or you have done some oilpump work, is to have about 100 feet clear and start the car slam it into gear, once you got a little speed up slam on the breaks, this forces the oil up to the pump. i tried it once and it did work. but now i do the vasoline thing.
