What's the best way to prime the oil pump on a 98 v6 camaro?

 

i have used the end of a good sized screw driver that i cut off. put it on my drill and pulled the oil pump drive and stuck the screw driver end in the oil pump drive shaft and used the drill driver tool to turn the pump and prime. gota make sure the drill is turning the right way. lol. did mine backwards first and it took a few times to figure out why it was not getting oil. lol.

 

You have that kind of vertical clearance if the engine is in the car?

 

Where's the pumps drive shaft? It's run off the crank

 

Unlike old school V8s you can not really prime the 3800 Oil pump, You would need an external pump. The 3800 is driven directly by the crankshaft

 

woh thats kool.

 

The one thing you can do is disconnect your ignition so the engine won't start, and crank it over till oil pressure builds.

 

How do I do that and if the motor isn't running how can I tell if the pressure is up?

 

Pull a valve cover or if you can see through the oil fill hole, check if oil is making it up to the rockers. But really, you don't need to "see" the oil, a handful of revolutions will get the oil pumping. Is this a newly built engine?

 

No I'm just replacing the timing chain and oil pump