I gave up on the oil pump priming the system by itself while cranking. I made the tool shown in
the attached photos several years ago based on a post by Gary Ash in August of 2010. I should
have just used this in the first place. It is a section of steel pipe with an end cap that has
been modified to accept a tire valve stem and fittings on the other end to connect to one of
the oil gallery ports. It works by taking the cap that has the tire valve stem off, mostly
filling the pipe with oil, screwing the cap back on, pressurizing with air through the tire
valve and using the ball valve to release the oil into the gallery and back to the pump. I'm
not sure how many ounces of oil the tool holds, but after two reloads I was getting oil pumped
out of the oil gauge port when I cranked the engine with the starter. That tells me that the
pump is now primed and I should be good to go to start after I finish the rest of the reassembly.
|