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Just an update:

I know the pump is spinning, since the distributor is spinning. I was able to take out the fitting from the last oil gallery, the one nearest the drivers side, and pump oil from it to the pump, so I know that oil gallery is clear. I am going to try the same from the oil pressure gage side, but I suspect the same is true there.

I took the spring out and verified that the oil relief valve is installed correctly, note there was a lot of oil that came out when I did that.

I kinda think that as all the oil galleries were completely dry maybe I just had to wait a bit longer. But I am proceeding very slowly right now. I have a few more experiments to run. My next experiment is to take off the oil pressure gage from the "tee" and see if oil is pumped out there while I am turning the engine.

Thanks everyone!

Lubriplate 105 is specifically designed for engine assembly and to disperse with oil. I've heard the horror story of failed self priming. Occasionally it happens in hot testing new motors and they are scrapped.

If there isn't a problem with the pickup then perhaps the drive gear is spinning on the shaft, or the pump is so worn it doesn't work.

On the "Senior" Packards with the separate crankcase the oil pump is located in the sump and is submerged in oil. Those pumps always worked. The Twelve pump is massive and trouble free.

Using the starter motor to somehow prime the system doesn't work very well if at all. I remember a car that was blown up in testing and the engineer in charge insisted that the motor should be primed using the starter. So there they were cranking that motor for days thinking it should produce oil pressure. It never happened. I watched this non-sense from a distance with the engineering documents in front of me that specifically stated such was not a process. Finally they let the motor run and everything was fine, but I think the motor blew up again after all that abuse.

I used liberal amounts of Red Line Assembly lube everywhere appropriate, and that appears to be what the shop used to pack the oil pump, that was the residue I found.

Red Line Assembly Lube

More to come.

Start the engine. The oil pressure will come up in about 5 seconds. You will grind your starter to powder and work all of the assembly lube out of the bearings before you fill up those galleries by slowly cranking.

If it takes longer than 5 seconds after it starts then you are going to have to do more searching, but give it at least that much time.

So, I finally got it started, and the oil light went out after a few seconds like Ross said. It has oil pressure now. It won't idle yet but that is probably some combination of spark and fuel issues, which will be addressed.

Thanks everyone.

Good job! Whatever you do, don’t run it on old fuel from the tank! I did that once and once it cooled, the valves were so caked up with rock-hard carbon deposits that the engine wouldn’t even turn over and required removing the head and all the valves, chiseling it all off and even replacing a couple valves that had gotten bent.

So I got the thing to idle today.

Sounds good. Figured out I had the generator hooked up backwards. Now all the idiot lights are off. My aftermarket gauge says 40 psi at high idle oil pressure(!).

Btw, I used Ross' method (from his wonderful video) to set the timing, and that worked good, except for one thing - when I rotated the distributor all the way "away", I find a "good spot" where it was rotated way counterclockwise, almost such that the vacuum advance was pointing at the 7 o'clock position. That turned out to be the "wrong one", and I found another position where it was pointing maybe at between 10 and 9'oclock, e.g. almost straight ahead. Once I figured that out and persisted, things got better.

Thanks everyone.

Just another update:

I drove it today!

Seems like it may have developed an exhaust leak, hopefully just needs to be retorqued. It wasn't doing that earlier as I was working on everything else. Just happenned. So perhaps simply a function of heat cycles as I was running the thing periodically as I checked on other stuff.

I checked the transmission and I am able to start in High, Low, and even (very carefully) shift from low to high, reverse, etc. The idle is too high now, so I need to take care of that, and check on the Ultramatic throttle position adjustment.

There seems to be a lot of blow-by, which is concerning. Maybe as the rings seat that will get better. Maybe not. It sure feels like it's a lot more powerful than before.

Update:

I re-torqued the head and the exhaust/intake manifolds (not so fun re-torquing the manifolds!). Observations:

1) Exhaust leak seems to be fixed. But one of the manifold nuts, the one that's right next to the carburetor close to the firewall, wasn't very tight. That is one I can only get a wrench on, so it's very hard to get tight. I cranked down on it as hard as I could, but I thought I did that earlier. Bears continued checking.

2) The head definitely needed to be re-torqued. So it was good I did that.

3) I figured out that I had way too much oil in the oil bath air cleaner, which seems to have contributed to the excessive blowby I observed earlier. I drained the oil bath air cleaner (haven't refilled it yet) and put it back on, and the blowby seems greatly reduced.

4) Looking at the exhaust now, I don't see any signs of burning oil (though this is the first time I checked), so that's a good sign. Exhaust looks really clean, transparent.

Hope to post some pictures soon.

Pictures (haven't re-installed the grille)!

Some more notes: continue to adjust the idle speed so that the Ultramatic is happy. That seems to be pretty important, otherwise shifting into reverse is abrupt.

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