dumb ? fill oil through cam sensor hole?

[DCVING 6]

Dumb question... I need fill my crankcase with oil so I can run the priming tool. Valve covers are off right now and I was hoping to leave them off so I can verify I have oil coming out of the push rods. Trying to carefully pour oil in the little hole in the head is just overfilling my tiny funnel and spilling oil everywhere. Can I just dump the oil down the cam sensor hole since it is out so I can prime the system? Just have a feeling that it is a bad move.

 

[pacecarta]

yep, pour away all ends up in the pan

 

[earlbrown]

Grab a funnel and get to pouring. It'll run across the timing set and straight down into the pan.

 

[DCVING 6]

That's what I thought, just didn't want to do something stupid. First time in almost 5 years the car has oil flowing through it.

 

[DCVING 6]

Ok, got the priming tools spinning... Only have oil coming out of one of the push rods. Tried letting run a little longer but the drill was getting HOT and I didn't want to burn it up.

 

[DCVING 6]

read up a little bit and it looks like since the lifters aren't primed I won't get much of any oil coming out of the top end.

 

[87GNSteve]

It can take a bit of time. I used a can of the "dust off" to cool a drill that was getting too hot when trying to prime the engine.

 

[earlbrown]

I'd go ahead and start it. Keep in mine when you prime the living shit out of an engine, you displace all the engine building jizz doing it.

Did you put the tappets in a vice and squish out the lifter assembly goo and make sure they're free and actuate properly? You might have a few that are just stuck and need a running engine to get them unstuck.

 

[DCVING 6]

eh this was just a timing chain replacement that got interrupted by having 3 kids and ended up taking almost 5 years. Oil pump was packed with Vaseline though, maybe that is the cause?

 

[earlbrown]

All the Vaseline should be safely lodged in the oil filter.

 

[Raeban]

Sometimes when priming engines I find that rotating the crank a little helps get the stubborn pushrods to start flowing oil FWIW.

 

[earlbrown]

Rotating the crank will flush the engine build jizz out of the other three rod bearings but it won't affect the lifters or pushrods.

 

[Buick Mark]

Just start the thing after priming

 

[Raeban]

Rotating the crank will flush the engine build jizz out of the other three rod bearings but it won't affect the lifters or pushrods.

Hmm, I may be misinterpreting what is happening when the crank is turned. My understanding is that the oil passes through the lifter galleys and in an engine without a central oil galley the groove in the lifter bore being in the up position would prevent significant flow from moving down the line. If I have this messed up thanks in advance for setting me straight.

 

[earlbrown]

The lifter galleys always get oil. The crank only supplies 1/2 the rods with oil and at vector (unless you have a cross drilled TTA crank that's pretty much non existent.)

If you want to make sure to displace all the engine building jizz via priming, you have to turn the crank 180* at last once.