Posted by gtk on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 at 11:04PM :
In Reply to: Re: Ready to oil up a new engine, how do you... posted by Arthur P. Bloom on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 at 10:12PM :
Basically a bearing leak down tester. I made a tank out of an old fire extinguisher. You only need to run it up to 20 pds, fill all the oil gallery and give the bearing something to spin on other that metal. Once the oil pump is primed and reaches pressure you can disconnect the external tank. The Standard Guide to Auto Restoration covers this process in detail and as does the Plymouth P15 factory service manual. You can spin the oil pump from the distributor (that's a chevy I believe) This is probably the most important step in starting a new engine and most guys do it wrong.