Oil Pump (Gerator style) - Rover V8

[sako243]

Right, being a good boy I checked the oil pump as per the overhaul manual on the 4.6V8 going back into the 6x6.

Some feeler gauges were harmed in the checking (naively following the picture in the manual) and between the top of inner rotor tooth and the outer rotor root. As this was marginal on the 10thou wear stated I ordered a new set of rotors from Turners (not massively expensive but still £60 odd).

Opened up the box to check when it arrived today and found the new rotors have an even bigger clearance (22 thou slips in) as is slightly visible in this picture.

Now speaking with Turners (they were a little short with the attitude the manuals are wrong / have mistakes / technology improves etc) I realised and they confirmed that the measurement instructed in the manual was largely pointless, what matters more and how they measure pumps is the gap between the tops of each hump, if the one indicated in the manual was zero then it couldn't rotate properly without putting stress on things.

Now measuring the other important characteristics the old and new pump rotors are the same (OD, thickness etc). However the new Turners rotor set I can get a 4 thou feeler gauge between the inner and outer rotor peaks, the old I cannot (misplaced my other set which has some thinner feelers).

The question is which one do I fit back in? The timing cover is as good as any other one from what I can tell (as in there are no replacements available), there was, as far as I know, no oil pressure issues, the light went out at idle and stayed out.

 

[Cobbler]

Are they known for wearing oil pumps? If not & it didn’t give a problem previously I would use the old one. When I rebuilt my son’s 4.6 I never gave it a thought, new bearings should pick up the pressure as well. I expect to get shot down in flames for this, but never mind. As you must know, there can be difficult to get the oil pressure up on the initial build on these engines, the pressure wouldn’t come up on the starter, so we put a vacuum pump on the oil cooler return & sucked up oil through the pump & filled the pipe work & cooler. That did it straight away.

 

[Greeves246]

Are they known for wearing oil pumps? If not & it didn’t give a problem previously I would use the old one. When I rebuilt my son’s 4.6 I never gave it a thought, new bearings should pick up the pressure as well. I expect to get shot down in flames for this, but never mind. As you must know, there can be difficult to get the oil pressure up on the initial build on these engines, the pressure wouldn’t come up on the starter, so we put a vacuum pump on the oil cooler return & sucked up oil through the pump & filled the pipe work & cooler. That did it straight away.

It was recommended to pack the oil pump with Vaseline prior to building.

 

[tom2207]

I would tend to be a bung the old ones back in sort ,,, and put plenty of grease round them to help them prime ,,, never give them a second thought

 

[Cobbler]

It was recommended to pack the oil pump with Vaseline prior to building.

We did & no joy. I wasn’t prepared to start it without knowing pressure would come up.

 

[tom2207]

We did & no joy. I wasn’t prepared to start it without knowing pressure would come up.

dont start it , just turn it over

 

[Cobbler]

dont start it , just turn it over

Pressure wouldn’t come up on the starter, which was why we primed it all with a vacuum pump.

 

[tom2207]

Pressure wouldn’t come up on the starter, which was why we primed it all with a vacuum pump.

I had that once ,,,,, so I packed the pump out with butter ,,, laying on my back , in the street , in the rain ,,,, not pretty , but it worked

 

[Cobbler]

I had that once ,,,,, so I packed the pump out with butter ,,, laying on my back , in the street , in the rain ,,,, not pretty , but it worked

Should have been margarine, give it the healthy alternative

 

[tom2207]

Should have been margarine, give it the healthy alternative

It probably was ,,, couldnt afford both petrol for a range rover , and butter back then lol

 

[sako243]

Are they known for wearing oil pumps?

Not that I'm aware of. They might have a bit of a name for flicking oil lights but as Turners pointed out there's very little in the way of restriction for the oil pump to the heads so at idle they don't build a lot of pressure because there's a lot of flow but as the revs pick up the pressure (and flow) increases.

Known for other things but oil pumps I'm not sure of.

 

[Cobbler]

@sako243 we have a load of Range Rover fuel injection parts in the shed left over from the one we did, also new 4.6 shells & rings etc. my son has sold the Land Rover, so won’t be needing them. I can pass on his number if you are interested.

 

[sako243]

If they're going free then maybe but with a freshly machined block, heads, new pistons, new top hat liners, new rockers, new cam chain, new oil pump I'm hoping I won't need much for a while...

He says with a spare vehicle growing in the vegetable garden...

 

[Cobbler]

If they're going free then maybe but with a freshly machined block, heads, new pistons, new top hat liners, new rockers, new cam chain, new oil pump I'm hoping I won't need much for a while...

He says with a spare vehicle growing in the vegetable garden...

Don’t know what he would want, I’ll ask him & come back.

 

[harveyp6]

I've not heard of crank driven pumps on the RV8 having problems. It was the early distributor driven pumps that had problems with priming and the oil light flickering on

 

[minimutly]

I've not heard of crank driven pumps on the RV8 having problems. It was the early distributor driven pumps that had problems with priming and the oil light flickering on

Yes, this indeed, don't confuse (or conflate?) the two. If your original pump doesn't look to have wear I would refit it @sako243