Help No Oil

[rsk68]

Hi guys

I just noticed when i pulled a valve cover off that there is no oil going to the rocker arms, It only has around 8 minutes of run time on it, What could I have done wrong here, I never had this problem before, a friend of all of ours put this together for me and i just put in the lifters, push rods and rocker arms, what the hell is up any one seen this before? I'm scared i may need to pull this thing out and tear it apart.

[Payton King]

I have seen it happen with the lifters not oiled up or primed, broken oil pump drive and one time when someone left the oil galley plugs out (small block chevy) during the rebuild

[MarkM66]

Probably should of checked this out by pre-lubing it, prior to running.

Engine type would help too, :thumbsup: .

[rsk68]

I primed the motor but with the valve covers on, motor is a 68 Big Block 396
I'm thnking an oil gally plug is missing @*#*!

[MarkM66]

I'd remove the valve covers, spin the pump and slowly rotate the engine.

I know on a sbc, there is a plug that goes between the inlet and outlet to the oil filter, if it's not there or pushed up to far, oil will not go to the cam/lifter area. Pan must be removed to intall plug, it's near the rear main seal.

This happened to me when building my 383. Oil would not go up to dist/cam. But sill showed oil pressure, becasue I had my sending unit near the filter, and not up at the distributor.

I would think bbc would be the same. I'd have to check my assembly manual.

[3kidsnotime]

I primed the motor but with the valve covers on, motor is a 68 Big Block 396
I'm thnking an oil gally plug is missing @*#*!
Take and put a manual oil psi gauge in the block on the lower lh side above the filter, pull your dist, and install a priming tool NOT a cheap one with out a body on it you have to seal the dist hole to provide psi to the upper end (the ones that are just a rod wont supply upper oil) and prime it and see what kind of psi you have there first. If you have good lower psi the 2 1/4 npt plugs behind the timing chain are probably not in. Good Luck

[3kidsnotime]

Also double check that you dont have a 65 block some early 66 they require a camshaft with a oil relief on the rear bearing surface

[MarkM66]

Did you ever get your problem resolved?

[rsk68]

I havnt had a chance to work on it this week, i talked to the engine builder and he siad there are restrictors in the block so it dosnt feed to much oil to the solid roller lifters, it could just need more run time to get it up to the heads, I will prime one more time this weekend and I'm going to pull a push rod to make sure i didnt install some solids rods, cant see me doing that, also i need to check the bolock # to see if its a 65 or 66 block, if this is the case i would still get oil to the topend but the last cam bearing would not get oiled, this would be another problem as he admits he didnt groove the last cam bearing.

[rsk68]

Hi Guys

well i pulled the intake and lifters today, looks like to me that I have the wrong lifters, there is a groove going around the lifter but no way for the oil to get from the groove to the oil port that feeds the pushrod tube, also there are no grooves in the lifter bore to help feed this, now these are the original lifters that were in the motor when i purchased it, the bearings and rollers are in good shape but it looks like to me there has always been this problem of no oil to the rockers. Ill look into new lifters ans see if this is dfferent with other brands.