Buick Dauntless no oil pressure

D

drdirt1990

Newbie
Hello, I'm new to this group. I inherited a '46 CJ2A with a Buick Dauntless odd fire a year ago. It sat for 18 months before I could take custody. Pretty sure it has a hotter cam and does have custom headers. Replaced the carb ran it regularly and then took it on a couple of rides through the forest. I think over the last year, I put way more miles on it that my brother-in-law had over the prior 6-7 yrs. My next project was to better tune the carb, check fuel pressure, timing, maybe install different jets. I usually ran it every other week until the temps were up. The last time I ran it....no oil pressure. It's mechanical. Gauge seems to work, tried to find any blocked oil pathway. Used pressurized air and/or wires at any opening I could get to trying to find clogs. Checked both banks of valves...taking the rockers off of the passenger side. Everything looks clean. Took apart the oil pump once ....very little scoring under the gears. Gears looked near perfect. Later rebuilt it. Ran the engine and no squeaks and no grinding but no oil at the valves and no oil getting to the gauge. Just installed a new thrust plate and waiting for new oil pickup. Anyone have an idea that I've not thought of yet? I really don't want to pull the engine. Thanks to all
 
www.v8buick.com

Oil Pump clearances and oil pressure

A lot FAQs here have to do with oil pressure. Buick engines, other than the Nailheads have a front mounted oil pump. The pump is actually housed...
www.v8buick.com www.v8buick.com

Take the distributor out. Remove the sender. Put oil into the sender hole, and reinstall the sender. Then power the oil pump with a drill. Run it backwards, then forward, and check for oil pressure. Sometimes the pump loses it's prime, but that is very unusual unless you take the pump apart, OR, you remove the timing cover. The Chassis manual advises packing the pump with vaseline to ensure prime when you work on the timing cover or pump. You can usually get prime by wetting the gears with oil and using a drill to run the pump.

Other causes are a clogged or loose pick up.
 
Thanks for the quick response. Waiting on a new oil pickup. Current one was clean, appeared to be tightly connected but covering the bases in case it had a micro crack or a leaky gasket, replacing it. Have been doing the Vaseline packing when opening up the oil pump. Going to try to snake more passages in case there's a gob of permatex blocking. Maybe do the drill method of priming when I get the pickup tube installed and ready to fire it up.
 
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