I have a 1974 455 that has been sitting for several years. I have put a new oil pump in it and have been trying to prime it with a drill. I was getting oil up through 1 pushrod but none of the others. What could be my problem? I am using a 1/2 inch drive corded drill. Could it not be spinning fast enough? TIA

 

You're rotating CCW, yes?

 

yes I am and using 10w 30 oil

 

Don't want to sound like a Smarty Poop, but you do have the distributor oil pump shaft installed correct? Using (I believe) a 5/16" socket.

 

yes brand new oil pump , 5/16 socket on the end of an extension clamped into a drill running in reverse, ccw. My next step is mounting an oil pressure gauge to see if I am building oil pressure

 

Back to your original statement, "are you spinning fast enough"? Probably not. It should be hard to spin it up. A nice way to smoke a 3/8" drive drill is spin it up for several minutes, if you can before it smokes. You might not be spinning it up fast enough. The oil pump spins at 1/2 engine speed; so, 1000RPM would be 500RPM. Fire it up. Certainly worthy to check oil pressure, if the ONLY thing you did was replace the oil pump, I can't imagine or guess where an issue might be. Crank that drill.

 

Yes its pretty tough spinning after it filled the oil filter, but it is a half inch drive drill and turns fairly slow anyway.

 

Video of a 350 Chevy. It should start where he begins to hit the drill....note he's cranking it. Not sure why it didn't start @ 1:39. Go to 1:39

 

Be aware that an Oldsmobile engine isn't going to sling oil like a Chevy or Ford engine. You can check any of the related threads below and many folks have mentioned this 👇

I drilled on the oil pump of my 455 for at least 10 minutes when I replaced the head gaskets. I never got oil out of all of the rocker arms. I went ahead and started it. I heard a tick for a few moments that quickly subsided. But I didn't replace any of the valve train when I did the head gaskets.

 

I have never had any problem with priming an engine with my 3/8 Dewalt cordless drill.

Crank the drill for awhile, turn the crank 90* and prime it some more. Unless you have pushrods full of crud, I would think you should see oil out of every rocker eventually.

 

Do you have an oil pressure gauge hooked up ? Does it show pressure when you spin the pump ? If so put the distributor in and start the engine.

Personally I think guys spend way way too much time worrying about oil coming out of the pushrods. If you have oil pressure believe me when you start the engine it will get oil up there. A lot of lifters will not let any oil through until they start moving.

And .... I use a 20 volt Dewalt cordless drill and it has no problems. This is a 425 I did a couple of years ago:

 

Hooked up an oil pressure gauge and it is getting good oil pressurer. I went ahead and pulled my rockers off and cleaned everything up. Cleaned all of the pushrods and made sure they were clear and reassembled with preassembly lube just to be on the safe side. Should be good to go now. Thanks for all of the input.

 

You have to rotate the engine as you do it; at times some passages are blocked. Valvetrain oil comes through the lifters then the pushrods. At times the lifter feed hole is blocked when the lifter is high enough.

 

Let us know how she starts.

 

There is ZERO need to "prime" the oil pump until the oil squirts over the fenders.

An Olds pump is submerged in oil. They'll self-prime on the starter motor when you fire it up the first time.

An oil pump spins 1/2 crankshaft speed. Engines get plenty of cold oil pressure on the starter motor. YOU DON"T NEED A DRILL MOTOR TO PRIME AN OIL PUMP. Put your 5/16 socket on a speeder handle or ratchet, one to one and a half revolutions per second (60 to 90 oil pump RPM, 120 to 180 engine RPM) is PLENTY to achieve oil pressure.

"Priming" is intended to displace air from the pump, the oil filter, and some of the major oil galleries. It's not needed for lubrication, since everything that needs lube was coated with assembly grease/oil. It's not a wellness-check of the oil galleries, the lifters, the pushrods...all that was verified during engine assembly. "Priming", then turn the crank, then "prime" some more, then turn the crank...some guys want to make a career out of something that can be done in thirty seconds, but really--doesn't need to be done at all. GM builds millions of engines. How many of them do you think they "prime"?

If you insist on priming the oiling system, turn the pump until you see oil pressure on the gauge. Stab the distributor in, and fire that mother up. Or don't bother priming, and just fire the mother up. You'd see oil pressure on the gauge within seconds--which is perfectly acceptable and exactly what you'd get at any commercial oil-change place, 'cause they're not going to pour oil in the filter before screwing it to the adapter.