no oil pressure following reassembly

[Frank]

Good evening all,

I have now got to the point of the restoration of my S1 Esprit where the car is tantalisingly close to completion (or going for a drive at least)

I have had the car apart over the last 8 years including the engine out of the car and the head off and redone. I have replaced everything that needed replacing oil pipes, water pipes, belts etc. etc. I have put it all back together filled the engine with fluids and last weekend I turned it over. On the second turn it fired and ticked over amazingly smoothly....only problem is that I dont appear to have any oil pressure showing on the gauge. I only ran it for about 20 seconds to see if it would pump up and then as it didnt I turned it off.

I cant rule out the possibility that the gauge is faulty as it has been some years since it has been run and most of the electics took some time to start to work.

A couple of questions spring to mind that I was hoping that someone can help me with.

1/ seeing I had drained everything down is there a need to prime the oil filter/cooler or something? or is there any magic that needs to be performed to get the oil through the system?

2/ Is there something that I may have forgotten to do or connect (I cant think of anything) or something that I may have inadvertantly disconnected (hope not) when I did the head?

3/ Is there a way of checking if there is oil circulating as my gauge may not have yet woken up.

Any help or advice gratefully received as I would love to fire it up again this weekend but the risk of no oil circulating is a problem

cheers Frank

[andydclements]

Hi Frank , it's not unheard of but thankfully not too common a problem.

3) look in the cam cover, with a torch and hopefully you'll be able to judge whether there's more oil than you put there when building.

Also, if you were to unscrew the oil pressure sender you would be able to see oil weep out if there had recently(stop engine then pretty much immediately check) been pressure in the oilways.

 

2) There needs to be a good seal around the pickup tube, where the olive seals it downwards of the pump.

 

1) You can try:

priming the pump, I'm not sure that petroleum jelly is a good idea but oil will be fine.

Removing the oil cooler sandwich plate and centre extension if the cooler system isn't primed, if it is primed then leave it in place.

We faced a similar problem on an engine that had been stripped and rebuilt. In the end I put a bolt through a spare pulley, used a timing belt and spun the oil pump for ages until, we got oil pressure showing.

 

[Frank]

Many thanks Andy that is great,

I will try this out at the weekend and see if I have any luck. It gives me faith that it is not an unknown problem so I probably havent missed anything silly and it will just take a bit of perserverance and logical working through.

cheers

Frank

[molemot]

I'll add my vote to the "spin the oil pump" suggestion. After comprehensive rebuilding, I fit an oil filter to the oil pump without the cooler takeoff... open all the hex plugs in the oilways and spin the auxiliary shaft with an electric drill, using a hex drive in the chuck fitting into the hex socket head screw on the pulley...as oil starts to come out of each open hole, refit the plug and carry on. In the end you can feel the oil pressure reaching the bearings as the drill slows down due to the load coming on it. At this point, you KNOW the oilways are full and you will have first start oil pressure. This is all done with the engine still on the engine stand... With your's in the car, the suggestion of using an old cambelt and suitable pulley to drive just the auxiliary shaft would work fine...don't forget to sort out the timing afterwards!!