Mon Jul 15, 2019 1:04 pm by BlindSquirrel36C-30
Finally finished the last of the connections of the old girl to the engine run stand. Ran through a last minute double check of everything then hit the start button. Everything seemed fine. But while cranking, I wasn't showing any oil pressure build. So I stopped everything (turns out prematurely). I pulled the two plugs above and below the pressure relief port and found no sign of residual oil pressure. What I wanted to do before the first attempt was like I do in my more modern builds. Run a shaft down the distributor hole on a drill and drive the oil pump until oil pressure is built up. Then install the distributor and go for the fire up. Well you can't. At least not with the HD version of these motors. The oil pump is driven by a gear cast in the middle of the camshaft and a gear directly pinned on the oil pump shaft. Yes, you could remove the gear. Assemble everything. Drive the shaft as stated above. Disassemble and reinstall the gear and then go for fire up. I choose a different route. I removed the distributor, removed the spark plugs, removed the two plugs above and below the pressure relief port and then crank her over. But we'll wait a minute for the whole of the story. Lets do some fill in first.
Now to the first point of the original reason for this post. When pressure built up. It is shown coming from the top port above the pressure relief. So I connected my run stands oil pressure gauge to this port. But this also means that I am now utterly confused. If I connect the bypass filter as indicated by the stamped "outlet" port on the filter. The top port on the block will connect to the bottom port on the filter and of course the bottom port on the block will connect to the top port on the filter. But wait a minute. This would mean that we are driving oil up threw the center post of the canister, threw the restriction hole of the post, out and in to the center of the filter. It will pass through the filter media and out the upper hole of the canister to be returned to the block. That is not the direction of flow for a more modern filter. Ahhhhh! Hence I have bypassed the bypass filter for the initial run up and will avail to figure this out later.
The second part of the story and much shorter. Always check the box when you get parts in the mail. Guess what I found wrapped in bubble wrap at the bottom of the box I got the bypass filter in? I had thrown several items in to one box and hadn't noticed the weight. When I removed the other parts to put them on the shelf. The box was still to heavy to be empty. Yup, there is was. The stand off mount for the oil filter. Now I don't have to make one for my other HD.
To wrap this up. I reinstalled the distributor and set the timing about where I thought. Installed the now single bottom plug below the pressure relief. Reinstalled the plugs and double checked the firing order. Splashed a little fuel in the tank. OK, one more time around for visual checks. Clicked on the electric pusher fuel pump. Checked the manual fuel pumps sight glass for fuel. Switched on the coil power and pushed the start button. Bam! A roar to life and 22psi of oil pressure. I'll double check the manual and set this to standards.
Now on to machining a clutch alignment pin and installing the clutch and trans.