Not sure I can add much to this discussion since I agree with the diagnosis of the misaligned crank pulley, however you might want to investigate the oil pump priming methods used for LS1 Chevy's, they have a similar oil pump design. Also, I have used the Vaseline several times with no problems.

 

I pulled apart the rest of the cover after work. The retaining plate failed in spectacular fashion. The innermost oil pump gear is now seized in the middle gear and does not slide in/out like it did on assembly.

I'm not imagining how I managed to pull this off. When installing the crank pulley, I slid it on the snout, it bumped into the keyway, i rotated the pulley around a bit and then it slid into the key way and further down until it seated. I torqued it down and it "bottomed out"/stopped at which point the belt went on and I continued with reassembly. When I went to check the belt and everything else after first fire, I notice the pulley was only 1 belt rib proud of the rest of the belt surfaces, and tightened it down the rest of the way. The crank pulley rides on a substantial part of the keyway, and if i had misaligned it and cranked it into the key, it would have pushed it in, right? Key way is still seated perfectly in its groove and shows no sign of being pushed. Also, on the way off(removing pulley) it was absolutely 100% keyed on the key way, it wiggled out but would NOT rotate until at the end when it slipped off the key way. I think if i had misaligned the key, it would have shown up multiple different ways, and I just don't see it.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely ****ed this up, but I don't think that was it.

I still really think it was hydraulic compression of the grease shoving the pulley straight out the back.


A side note, the new oil pump gear set is not marked with orientation. Is there a correct/wrong orientation? I came across a video where the person mentions the outermost gear having a bevelled edge that is meant to ride forward on the engine, not back, and I did NOT have it that way on disassembly and inspection







Ka-Blam.



The bolts are all bent and stretched, look like trees in the wind.





Wear on the outermost gear





Inner gear is seized and appears crooked in intermediate gear. Also large wear and indentations on gear teeth

 

You have the inside gear that goes on the crankshaft backwards. The tapered end faces out not in. You tightened it down and broke the pump before it even turned

 

Or when you put the oil pump cover on you did not have the sleeve aligned with the key way. And the bolt was tightened down. It forced the sleeve over the key and cracked it, that caused the sleeve to become wedged tight to the oil pump gear and as you tighten the bolt it drove the sleeve and gear backwards towards the block and exploded the oil pump

 

Do you mean the inner bevelled edge of the inner drive gear? It exists on both sides of the gear, that part at least is not face dependent.

And no again on the keyway and the inner sleeve.... the inner most gear/sleeve which has the key way slides over the key on the crank and over 1" of key way sticks out from the front face of the inner gear to interface with the crank pulley. Nothing with bolts could have forced that key way into the oil pump gear, it slid over nice and easy when the front cover went on

 

its a honest mistake don't beat yourself up over it. Im sure the guys on this board will help you with parts. If I had a pump and cover I would ship it to you at no cost, but sadly I don't . Hang in there you will get the help you need Im sure

 

When I did my front cover, I didn't prime at all. Just cranked her over like normal. No oil light, not even a flicker. I don't think vaseline is needed to help prime, just dip everything in oil so it's not bare metal on bare metal

 

The carnage in those pics is epic! The bent bolts are insane. Did your crankshaft take any damage, especially where the alignment key sits?

 

So I'm looking closely at your carnage pics and few things stand out to me.

The amount of Vaseline still present (especially still pack in the oil pickup location) seems to indicate that oil may have never even gotten to the pump. I would think the Vaseline would immediately start moving through the system once started and it sure doesnt look like oil ever mixed in with the Vaseline (look at all the fresh Vaseline still packed where the oil inlet is!)
If your truck ran for minutes with no oil getting to the pump, it would quickly heat up the gears and they would eventually seize up just like in your pics, and then exploded. So I might have to change my original opinion that Vaseline couldn't possible be packed in to tightly. The evidence does seem to support that case, in my opinion.



I think the failure point may have been a clogged oil inlet, just my opinion.

 

So, I'm in the middle of reassembling my own oil pump on a new-to-me project truck. I am therefore following this sad tale with great interest. I didn't see anywhere in the D2 workshop manual, the RAVE, or the 4.0/4.6 engine overhaul manual about there being a specific orientation for the drive gear in the middle of the oil pump. Like the OP, I believe that the chamfers on the gear are the same in both directions so there is no "top" and "bottom" face to that assembly. Of the three complete oil pumps in my possession (the original one from this truck, plus two replacements that I purchased) one of them has a small index mark stamped into the outer pump ring, but there doesn't seem to be anything to align it with.
I have already reassembled and reinstalled the entire front cover, oil pickup and oil pan but I'm waiting on a head gasket kit so I haven't tried to run the engine yet. I was planning to run it through a few rotations using a wrench on the harmonic balancer to check that everything is turning smoothly. But now that I'm terrified by the photos above and before I tear everything apart again to check it, can anyone provide specific alignment and/or orientation instructions (for me and the OP) to follow?