actually they will probably be thankful for your thorough checking and give you a break, reason is they may or may not have caught that and without looking at another one they would not know it was a casting imperfection. Now they know. its normal on all of them when someone calls and says its defective they can point out its normal.

 

If you are doing all this other work, new oil pump and timing chain might be worth your while. Pix of cracked pump, it will make oil PSI, just not enough. May cause a Tick.

Many people do use grease to keep oil pump from starting dry and get it pumping quickly. Attached RAVE page from overhaul manual says just oil. IMHO it may be a good idea to remove plugs, and fuel pump relay, and spin engine by starter to bring up initial oil pressure after re-fit of pump.

 

It would be a good idea to take the cover off and inspect the timing chain, gears and the oil pump. There is no danger in checking the pump and putting in back in if it's OK. Just make sure that you put some oil on the gears and loctite on the small Phillips screws on the cover that holds the oil pump in the cover.

Let me know if you got any questions as I already did this and also have a spare cover and the oil pump in my garage for reference.

And as Buzz mentioned above, once everything is together take out the fuel pump relay and crank the engine for 10-15 seconds to get the oil flowing before you start the truck.

If you decide to do the timing chain (too sloppy) make sure that you line up the gears correctly. I think there was a guy here somewhere that did this but got it misaligned.

Cheers!

 

Thanks guys,

Boris: are you thinking of selling your spare cover and pump? If so how much do you need for them? Just never know what I'll fine when I pop it open. My Disco has the oil cooler; are all covers compatible between oil cooler/no oil cooler models? Thanks again.

 

Hey fella, yes....I still have the spare (used) cover with brand new oil pump (bought the original one seperatelly and when I ordered the new cover, another pump came in it). There is also new front crank seal in it as well that's already pressed in.
I am not pushing for selling it simply because I like to have a spare. But if you are stuck and in need of one........then I guess I can make an exception and sell it to you.

I just looked up the part # on AB website and they got a different part # for our trucks (2001 and 2003). I am not sure if this is because the different oil filter orientation (which can be changed) or.......

But I tell you what........When you take yours off and if it's damaged or what not, contact me right away and we can compare part numbers on them and if they match, I'll sell you mine (with 200% markup hahahaha just kidding). So if you are planning on doing this through X-mass don't think you will necessarily be stuck because you can't get one.

We'll keep in touch.

Cheers!

BTW where are you located?

 

Bountiful, Utah here.
I pulled the gears and they look good to me.
Anyone know of an engine rebuilt gasket kit that comes with everything needed; like the oil pump seal and front/rear crank seals etc, etc, etc. ?
I pulled the bolts out of the oil filter adapter but I couldn't break it loose so I figure that gasket has got a good seal so I reinstalled/torqued the bolts and I'll just leave that one alone.
I read in the RAVE last night to install the oil pump housing/engine front/timing cover with the gasket "dry". Seems to me it would be best to use some RTV also.... at least around coolant passages. I setup an pressure test on the block before I pulled the motor and it did have a small leak between the timing cover and the block at the left hand side coolant passage.
What's your opinion (anyone) mounting the oil pump housing/timing/engine front cover with gasket dry per the RAVE or with some RTV sealant ?

 

If by "oil pump housing" you mean "engine cover" then YES. I installed mine dry with the gasket. Works fine. No leaks at all.