0 oil pressure after in frame rebuild

[mitchell hamilton]

92 tsi 6 bolt, replaced, rings and rod bearings in the bottom end, never touched the front case at all, rebuilt head and properly bled lifters, Me and Darryl D did both timing belts and goodies today. So after priming the engine for 30 sec's was not building any pressure on the stock gauge, fired it up for 5 sec's max, 0 oil getting to the cams or turbo (took out the little screw) no oil getting to the filter at all (took it off emptied oil put back on and turned it over). Should nmention that there was a Mickey Mouse way of getting the crank pulley off and the lower oil pump pulley was pried on a little bit. Hoping the shaft did not break inside, Maybe the pickup tube fell off while I was putting the pan on? At a loss right now. Any suggestions.

[mitchell hamilton]

Did a bunch of reading and found this over in Canada DSM, gunna give it a whirl, he had the exact same problem as I am having, I guess the starter does not turn over the pump fast enough to prime the motor, it was suggested to start and stop the motor a bunch to gradually prime the motor but that honestly scares the crap out of me.


Well, late last night I finally got everything together, and I'm happy to report that I have oil pressure again!!  

I have no idea what happened that caused this condition, but I decided that I had no choice but to try and prime the pump somehow, and that there was no need to tear apart the timing belt stuff because Dennis' suggestion made alot of sense.

So for those of you that find yourself in my shoes, here is what you should do:

1. Buy a cheapy hand operated suction gun (picture a big syringe). You will use this to suck up some oil, then squirt it into the system.

2. Buy a fitting with 1/8" NPT on one side, and a regular barb fitting on the other.

3. Remove the stock oil pressure sender for the gauge. When I removed mine, only two drops of oil came out.  

4. Put the threaded fitting into the hole where the gauge sender was. If it's NPT like mine instead of whatever we've got (BSPT?) then it will not go in far, just a few threads is enough.

5. Connect the suction gun to the fitting with some hose, and squirt all the oil into the hole. My theory is that this forces oil into the all the right places (including the oil pump I would imagine), priming the system. As I did this, oil started flowing out of my turbo feed line, which was a good sign.

I put everything back together and it had pressure immediately upon starting it. Cool!

Thanks everyone for your help!

[Scott Girvin]

You can also use a drill on the oil pump nut to prime the block.

[John Hartman]

if you pull your spark plugs and have a good battery(or a boost from a running car) it will spin plenty fast for priming.

glad you got it going  

[mitchell hamilton]

Manually primed the son of a gun until there was oil coming out in the head, primed it a little more and the pressure gauge actually moved, fired her up and the oil pressure was a risin. Very happy and it runs actually very nice with no smoke, excited to see what my compression numbers will be. Too bad it is already sold. :cry: Just gotta break her in now.