RRC oil pump rebuild

[roverthen]

I had a few things on my to do list which I finally got around to:

-Drop oil pan, clean sludge and install new gasket
-replace oil hoses
-remove and rebuild oil pump


First was the oil pan. I was really impressed to see how clean it was! Hardly any sludge ('93 rrc w/ 125k miles). The hardest part was putting it back. It was a bitch to align all the bolt holes and maintain the gasket clean.

Second was the hoses. Simple and straight forward.

Third was the pump. I purchased a simple rebuilt kit from AB. It came with all new copper washers, new pressure valve, valve spring, gasket and two new plugs. Removing the pump took some finesse, small bolts and hard to reach areas. After replacing all the components in the kit I re-installed the pump. I filled the new oil filter and installed. The rest of the oil went on top as normal. I started the truck and after 2 minutes running it started to sound scary. It sounded and felt like the engine was being pounded with a sledge hammer with every revolution. I took out the oil filter and it was empty. The engine was not circulating oil at all! I took a break and looked in the RAVE. Seems that I did not prep the pump so it would prime itself properly. The manual says to pack the gears in petroleum jelly. Also to make sure you pre-oil the relief valve and spring prior to re-installing. So back I went to dismantle the pump and prep it for proper priming. I re-installed the pump and turned on the rrc. It took about two minutes before the super loud tapping sound completely disappeared. Engine purrs like a kitten now.

The frustrating part about all this is that when I searched all the forums nothing came up about anyone rebuilding the oil pump. I even checked Okie's page hoping to find something. I found minimal info in RAVE. Enough to get the job done right. I won't even go into how long this whole project took. I did learn something new though.

Well, I hope that anyone that decides they need to tackle this type of project will come across this post.

[atvsmurf]

good stuff to know...