Ok guys, i had just rebuilt my motor (full bottom end from AMS, pistons, rods, rings, bearings, water pump, oil pump) and everything was fine. 200 miles later engine cuts off but i have no leaks and everything appears normal and it cranks back up and idles/drives fine. I get home and I have a oil leak. I find out that the oil pump seized and after getting everything apart i notice the AMS balance shaft eliminator seems to be the failing point. The bearing on the end is dry and scarred badly. I replaced the BSE with a stubby shaft from buschur and replace the oil pump. Now I have no oil pressure at all. I pulled the fuel pump fuse and turned it over several times and I still can get the oil pressure up. Any thoughts?

 

is your oil cooler dirty?, restricting flow?

 

When you say you replaced the oil pump, did you just replace the actual pump gears or did you replace the entire front case like the oil pump and housing that houses the crank seal as a complete assembly? If you replaced the gears only, you dont have a problem. When you buy a complete front case assembly with the gears/housing, the gears are packed tight with lubricant, when they spin, they create suction even when the starter is cranking the engine over. When you replace just those gears and dont pack them with lubricant, they wont produce any suction until the engine is spinning at a decent speed, faster than the starter could spin it. I was freaking out about this a few years back when I did my rebuild but it was fine as soon as it was started up. The next time I did it, I just packed the gears with vaseline and it allowed it to create suction, the vaseline wont hurt anything, dsm guys have been doing that for years.

 

Oil Pump is clean, and yes I replaced the entire oil pump housing. The engine was turned over and idled for about 10-15 seconds and when the oil light didnt go off I shut it off and was letting the starter turn the motor over.

 

If you did the AMS balance shaft eliminator, that bearing should have oil flow so as not to score the end of the shaft.

If you have now replaced it with a stub shaft, I hope you removed that bearing and replaced it( made sure that there is no oil coming out)

That might be your pressure problem.

 

That bearing gets oil from the shaft itself.

 

Sorry, my bad, brain fart.

 

Thats my understanding of it. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Try taking off the timing belt, and spinning the oil pump with a drill, or impact. You should be able to see oil squirting out of the rockers when doing this. Just take off the oil cap, and watch for the flow to start while spinning the pump.

 

Well my lack of time to work on it nowled me to cave in and send it to a shop. The last straw was when after turning the motor over as much as we had we still didnt have any oil before or after the oil filter and had no oil before the oil cooler. Thanks to all of your input though.

 

Any update on this? I was pretty sure you had to take out the shaft bearing and realign the oil hole so it blocks oil, I don't see how it would have its own oil pressure source, it is bolted to the end of one of the oil pump gears but I dont remember any passageways or anything going to it, but I could be wrong. I do know your supposed to reposition the bearing when doing a b-shaft delete tho so I think this prob is his problem.....

 

I had the same problem and people way smarter than me told me two things. One is to unscrew the oil filter and crank the motor until the oil flows out of the filter housing. If that doesnt work then you can remove the oil pressure switch and install an 1/8in NPT barb fitting and pull a vacuum and suck oil out of the pan into the oil pump housing. I did the barb fitting on my problem car and it worked like a charm.

 

If you had the oil pump off I hope you filled it with some gooey assembly lube or something, it helps make a vacuum to pull the oil. I'm sure its been mentioned but just saying.

That second idea is a good idea, never heard of doing that. Thanks for mentioning it, I might try that next time I take everything apart so I dont have to hear the deadly noise it makes before the oil pressure builds up

 

Whatever you do, DO NOT spin the gear with an impact, even on low. YOU WILL break the stud off the oil pump gear. I promise- A high speed drill is the way to go

 

BtW, if you didnt rotate the balance shaft bearings to block off the oil holes you definitly will not build oil pressure.