Hi all,
Just rebuilt my first motor, left bottom end/block alone. My son and a friend both talked me out of doing the bottom end - and a leak down test showed only air coming out exhaust and intake (valves), nothing coming out of oil dipstick, etc - so rings/cylinders seemed fine. Head job, new cam, lifters, pushrods, oil pump, timing chain set, FMS/RMS, exhaust man., water pump, thermostat, freeze plugs, gaskets, etc.
I filled it w/fresh oil yesterday, excited for the milestone. Found a 11" piece of 3/8" threaded rod, ground it down to replicate the bottom of the distributor, chucked it to a drill and spun the oil pump - valve cover off.
Soon, oil squirted vigorously out of most of the push rod holes - except #5 exhaust. #2 and 4 also weren't nearly as "gushy" as the others, but 5 was bone dry - nothing.
I spun the motor several times with a socket on the crank/balancer bolt, then spun the shit out of the oil pump for another 20 seconds or so - nothing out #5 push rod.
I'm very worried. What could have I done wrong? I just saw someone recommend that you remove the spark plugs while doing this?
I'm hoping there's something I can do to get oil flowing out all push rods equally - very hopefully without tearing apart this motor.
My initial thoughts:
Do a leak-down test, just to get pressure into the system somehow?
drain the oil, re-fill with a very lightweight, viscous oil to see if that can worm its way through
buy one of those $170 pressure tank systems to more forcefully push oil thru
Pray that you gurus out there tell me I'm over-reacting and somehow everything is fine
Tear apart the motor and start over (childlike sobbing)
Many thanks for your ideas/expertise!