No oil pressure, cant seem to prime the oil pump

[AKTURBOTA]

The 4.1 is in the car, but the oil pump doesn't want to prime. The oil pump was well packed with vaseline and drill was used to turn the oil pump, but cannot get it to pump oil. What could be wrong?

Mark

 

[Chuck Leeper]

Running the drill in the wrong direction??

 

[AKTURBOTA]

Well we eliminated as many "other" possibilities as we could before removing the front cover to see what may be the obstruction. The culprit has been revealed to be the front cover in that the oil feed from the pickup was not fully drilled through. Nice...huh? If we would have confirmed the no oil pressure problem when it was on on the engine stand, then it wouldn't have been as big of deal as it now.

 

[Grumpy]

The culprit has been revealed to be the front cover in that the oil feed from the pickup was not fully drilled through. Nice...huh?

common thing with new GM covers :frown:

 

[Jan Larsson]

Hmmm, still due to prime mine (in the stand) and pretty sure I looked at this issue when I blueprinted my new front cover .... getting worried now :redface:

Anyway, I packed my gears with vaseline and will be using a drill to prime the pump. Should oil come out the pushrods (both driver and passanger side) so all I need to do is remove the valvecovers or should I look for oil somewhere else while priming? I also understand I should slowly move the crank around (full 360 ?) to make sure I get oil everywhere while priming?

Anything else I should do while priming in the stand (check for oil leaks of course but anything else)?