[Healeys] No oil pressure

[Mike Garvey]

I am sure that others will have something to say about this, but my paranoia has led me always crank the engine, spark plugs removed, until I got some oil pressure following an oil change.  I made a simple wiring harness that lets me connect (with a pushbutton) the starter solenoid directly to 12 V so that nothing else in the car is powered.  With no compression, it cranks quite easily and when you (finally) prime the oil pump, you can hear the cranking speed drop a bit.  It can take more than a minute in my experience.
 
Mike Garvey
1967 BJ8/38046
Swampscott, MA
 
From: Healeys [mailto:healeys-bounces at autox.team.net] On Behalf Of Michael Oritt
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2016 12:50
To: Austin Healey
Subject: [Healeys] No oil pressure
 
This morning I drained my old engine oil on my 100 and replaced the oil filter, then refilled the sump to the correct level and restarted the engine to check for oil pressure.
 
After several seconds I became concerned when the oil pressure gauge needle stayed pegged.  I also have a low oil pressure warning light, the sender for which is mounted to the block at the point where the flex hose normally attaches and it is staying lit.  
 
By this time I had run the engine for at least 30 seconds and was becoming very concered, so I shut it down, removed the valve cover and disconnected the banjo bolt going to the rocker shaft, then restarted the engine--no oil is coming out of the bolt.
 
Thinking that perhaps the oil pump lost prime I removed the flex hose from the coiled copper pipe gong to the oil pressure gauge and back-fed some engine oil, then reattached the hose to the line but on restarting again nothing has changed.
 
Though this has never happened before I have heard of oil pumps not repriming themselves and/or taking a while to do so after an oil change.  I have already run the engine for at least a minute in the several restarts and am frankly concerned that serious damage may have already happened.
 
Any thoughts or suggestions will be appreciated.
 
Best--Michael Oritt
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