I rebuilt the motor with all new internals (minus pistons and oil pump) last year and the truck ran mostly fine. It was lacking power and had excessive blow by so I pulled it and had the machine shop check the pistons and rings (gave him the Rave specs). We ended up buying new pistons and rings. Put it all back together and ended up replacing the oil pump gears while I was at it. I just fired it up for the first time and the oil pressure light never turned off after 10 seconds so I killed it.

How long should it take to pressurize the whole system after being completely drained? Did I kill it too soon or do I need to investigate further?

 

Must pack oil pump with vasoline or thin grease to get quick prime.

 

Can it still prime without it or do I have to tear back in to it?

 

I did not pack mine. I unplugged fuel pump fuse and cranked it several times. then plugged it back in and started it up and had the right pressure.

 

I tried cranking worth fuel pump fuse pulled but only for a couple seconds. Probably should try again. I may also try pre filling the oil lines to see if that helps

 

Used same technique and it worked for me. I recall some advice about not cranking for more than 15 seconds then wait 15 seconds. Repeated and was good after 4th crank.

BTW I did that after trying the whole back flow oil into pump via hose thru the oil filter mount thing. That didn't work at all for me.

 

One more thing i did was fill my filter with oil before installing it, one less thing for pump to fill with oil on start up.

 

I ended up trying to start it again and by 8 seconds the light went out. All is well besides my Scangauge not registering any 02 sensors or TPS... I also was getting pending codes for high or low voltage on 02's, tps, and fuel sensor...