Oil Pump Priming?

BryantJT

BryantJT

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I'm in the process of changing my rear main seal and I've had the oil pan off for most of the week, work and other stuff came up.

Should I prime the oil pump after I reassemble since it has been drained for 5 days?

If so, what's the process on a 2006 4.0? Or should I just pull the plugs and crank it with the starter and look for oil pressure?
 
I wouldn't worry about it unless you wiped the bearing clean when you took off the cap. If you want to worry about it though, the proper way is the stick a drill with a flat head driver tip down in the distributor hole and spin the pump manually.
 
I just reread that. Did you remove the oil pump for some reason?

Keep in mind, the oil sitting in your pan when everything is assembled and working normal, but parked for 5 days is sitting well below the level of the bearings/rms/edge of the oil pan. So no difference really unless you cleaned the oil off the bearing or pulled the oil pump.
 
That's basically how the motor sits all the time then. The pan is just a bucket of oil hanging below the motor when it's parked. But like I said, if you "cleaned" the bearing, prime it. If it was still oil covered when you put it back, fire it up.
 
I just did that exact repair thinking I would not have to prime the oil pump. When I was done the engine was overheating and I had no oil pressure. I had to prime it by removing the camshaft position sensor and turning the 1/2" bolt with a drill until I felt pressure. This fixed that problem. One thing to be wary of is that when you remove that sensor make sure it is is line with top dead cenor on the compression stroke. I made a mistake and put it in on top dead center on one of the other strokes and the engine ran like i had a thrown rod or something. I had a buddy help me by feeling the #1cilinder for air blowing while I manually turned over the engine. When we had top dead on compression stroke we had the take off the cps cap, loosed the cps housing, so that we could turn the housing to be in line with the two inside and outside alignment holes on the sensor. This fixed my crappy running problem. That has been my experience with priming my oil pump.
 
I’ve recently replaced RMS, timing chain and oil pump, and now have all the spark plugs out for replacement. Would anyone recommend priming the oil pump by just cranking the motor several times for maybe 10 seconds each time?
 
SkylinesSuck said:
I wouldn't worry about it unless you wiped the bearing clean when you took off the cap. If you want to worry about it though, the proper way is the stick a drill with a flat head driver tip down in the distributor hole and spin the pump manually.
Click to expand...

Just did my RMS and replaced the oil pump. Glad I saw your post on how to properly prime the new oil pump.

How long should I spin the flathead bit with a drill after I remove the OPDA?

BTW, the new pickup tube install was sketchy without the fancy install tool that you have.
 
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I don't remember exactly how long, but I remember being surprised it took as long as it did the first time. To the point of wondering if my drill was getting too hot. After it was primed though, it only took a couple of seconds on subsequent primes to build pressure (just monkeying with it).
 
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