The V8 Owners Forum -

Hi all , not long joined ( put a few pics of my p6 in " your cars " )
Any hoo , over this long weekend i plan to replace the timing gears with a jp performance set , and upgrade the oil pump with a real steel kit . Any tips , things to look out for , heads up would be appreciated . I had the timing cover off about a year ago and replaced the water pump . at the time i replaced the troublesome long bolts with stainless studs and nuts so i'm not too worried about getting it apart . Just any tips about the oil pump re build/upgrade . I have bought a new standard relief valve and spring .
Thanks
Stina

Stina, get yourself the GM/Opel/Buick V6 front cover. It is a bolt on and has the higher capacity pump as standard. Alternatively, there is a mod kit you can buy to upgrade your existing setup, but i don't know much about them.

Hi John , fancy seeing you here I have the real steel kit on the bench ready to go tomorrow . Just wanted any tips , advice from any one here who's fitted one .

Link to the pump kit , i got mine from Rimmer brothers , but the same kit
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rover-V8-P5B- ... 4161a7cef6
Stina

I would fit a later front cover with the bigger gears.
Those kits do need carefull installation so you dont get any binding. And on 20/50 oil I found that it caused excessive wear on my dissy drive gogs.

After stripping two cam cogs I took it off and fitted the old set back on. I solved my low oil pressure problem after a serious hard inspection by fitting new rocker gear and a new relief valve and spring.

Oh deer , looks like i've jumper the gun a tad then , i don't have seriously low oil pressure , around 15/20 psi hot tickover ( 750 rpm in neutral , auto ) but in drive it ticks over 500rpm and drops to 10ish psi Don't totally trust the electric gauge but light never flickers . Thought i was doing the right thing , going more for flow than pressure , should i leave alone ? Put new pump kit on ebay I am looking for reliabality over performance
Stina

I'd call that good. My SD1 barely reads anything at idle using 10/40. Always been the same. And it's done over 170,000 miles. Still goes from one oil change to the next without needing topping up.
But same as yours, the oil pressure light never even flickers no matter how hot it gets - so there's a good chance the gauge isn't accurate.

Stina wrote:Oh deer , looks like i've jumper the gun a tad then , i don't have seriously low oil pressure , around 15/20 psi hot tickover ( 750 rpm in neutral , auto ) but in drive it ticks over 500rpm and drops to 10ish psi Don't totally trust the electric gauge but light never flickers . Thought i was doing the right thing , going more for flow than pressure , should i leave alone ? Put new pump kit on ebay I am looking for reliabality over performance
Stina

10psi at hot tickover is my bottom limit. As long as it makes around 40psi hot at 2000 rpm thats fine.

Perry

OK, in that case, you need to be careful of the clearances between the gears and end plates. Too much will give you loss of efficiency and too little will cause premature wear.
I think it's adjustable with the gaskets??

Pack the gears and cavity with Vaseline when you assemble the pump so it has something to suck against on start-up (oo-er, Missus) that way you don't have to remove the dizzy and spin it up to prime it.

Hi guys , been getting on with it all weekend . I have the timing cover back on , new timing gears fitted , and the upgrade kit in the oil pump . Ispent hours cleaning and assembling the pump , spacer plate and gears , when i spin it up with the drill it pulls the drill down nearly to a stall . having said that it's only a cheep halfords job and i can stop it with my hand around the chuck . The gears aren't binding up on the Cover . I used one of the half thickness gaskets supplied with the kit under the spacer plate , and a standard rover gasket between cover and spacer plate . does it sound about right how it pulls the drill down ?
Stina

Yes, when it's pumping oil, it's quite a load for a cordless drill. So if the oil light goes out too, I'd be happy with that.

Chris.

Thanks Chris . I stalled on what i was doing until i had some conformation on it . Spent time mounting up the cooling fan and a bit of tidying up , splodging some paint around the cross member Etc . I'll refit the dizzy and fuel pump and run her up over the next few afternoons and see what we've got . Cheers .
Ps , i guess new , cold oil and new gears is quite a load on the drill !
Stina

Hi Guys , an update , and a bit of advice required . Been running around for a month or so since i did the oil pump and timing gears , running well . As i said before i used one of the half thickness gaskets supplied in the kit , and one standard thickness rover gasket . After running it for a couple of weeks i thought the pressure was a bit high so i stripped it down and fitted two standard thickness gaskets ( one each side of the spacer plate ) this has lowered the pressure to a more reasonable 50 psi normal driving and around 20 psi idling ( hot )
However some times goes up around 60 psi while driving and will not come down until under about 2000 rpm .
I feel the pump isn't making too much pressure now i have fitted the standard gaskets , more that the pressure relief valve / spring isn't controlling it very well . I don't have anything to base that on other than it is better since fitting the standard gaskets .
Talking to a guy that posts on here occasionally at a local meet he suggested taking a coil out of the relief spring to lower the pressure and experimenting with it . I have a spare spring .
Any thoughts , advice welcome .
Stina

I'm not sure I'd be too worried about that.

If you didn't have a pressure gauge, just a light, you wouldn't even know!

Chris.

If you want to mess around with oil relief springs, I'd suggest using a different softer spring rather than chopping coils- when you cut a spring down it actually makes it stiffer (although shorter in length depending on how much you chop off), hence why softer springs usually have lots of coils and vice versa.

Are you sure it is a stock spring and not the MGB version, The MGB spring only lets the relief open at 60 psi. Try and get a stock one and compare, that level of pressure won't hurt though. I just wish we could get more. But the bearings are happy even with oli like water after three passes in 38 minutes with no cooling system

Alan