• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

TR2/3/3A Restoration of 54 TR-2

Share this page

R

Redoakboo

Jedi Warrior
Country flag
Offline
I have recently re-installed the rebuilt engine in my TR-2 and am starting to complete the wiring. Question: I turn the engine over with the crank to try to circulate the oil that is in there. By turning with the crank, will the oil pump give enough pressure to see oil on the valve train?

Dick
 
If you properly lubed the engine during assembly it should be good for a couple years. Using the starter to turn the crank takes several minutes to get enough oil through the system, and you are likely doing more harm than good with the dry cranking. Most wear on engines is during the cranking/starting. I would recommend leaving the engine stationary and loosen the rocker shaft to relieve the valve spring pressure, if it will be more than a year before the final start.

Also, do not add oil until ready for the initial start...remove the valve covers and ensure all goes down the lifter bores. If you can fashion a special oil drive from a worn out distributor, use that with a drill to circulate the oil and build pressure immediately before the initial start. if you don't have an old distributor to fashion a primer with, still use a screw driver with a drill to ensure the pump has primed and is providing oil. Then replace the distributor and crank it up.

The goal for any new rebuild is a start with the minimum cranking time possible, so ensure the fuel system is primed, a fresh battery, valve adjusted, and you have a spark with close enough timing for a quick start.
 
To answer your question, it takes a long time to start seeing oil at the rockers even with the engine idling. I'm pretty sure you could get there with the hand crank (and the plugs out), but there is no way I would want to crank on it that long.

Because of the way the camshaft meters the oil to the rockers, the oil gauge actually comes up first, before any flow is visible to the rockers. I've never put a stopwatch on it, but I'd guess it's close to 30 seconds at 1000 rpm before the rockers start oozing oil; so something like 500 turns of the crankshaft. And that's for a normal start, where the oil filter is already full, etc. (I often leave the cover off after checking the valve lash, and start the engine to make sure all the rockers are getting oil. Never had a shaft plug up on my own engines, but I have seen it on others.)

IMO the bit about most engine wear being at startup is a myth, often repeated by the likes of Slick-50 and STP (both of whom have been censured by the FTC for lying in their advertisements). Also, on the TR2 (unlike most engines), the oil pump literally sits down under the oil; it doesn't need to be primed. Just spinning with the starter (plugs out) puts very minimal load on main and rod bearings (which of course you greased during assembly), and not much load on the camshaft journals, etc (due to the low speed), which again were generously greased. "Back when", many engines ran with only drip lubrication to those points anyway. If you attend any antique power show, you can see a long line of engines with their rockers fully exposed to the outside, and no lube at all beyond the occasional squirt (by the operator) from an oil can.

Anyway, I've always just spun it with the starter until the gauge comes up; then put the plugs in and started it. I've run well over 100,000 miles, and never seen any signs whatsoever of excess wear on initial startup. Besides which, you actually want some wear right at initial startup, that's the "bedding in" that the manual talks about, and the reason you don't use super-slick oils for the first few hundred miles.

A stock TR2 is going to have it's life shortened a lot more by the primitive air filters, than by being started without oil pressure.
 
CJD said:
Also, do not add oil until ready for the initial start...remove the valve covers and ensure all goes down the lifter bores. If you can fashion a special oil drive from a worn out distributor, use that with a drill to circulate the oil and build pressure immediately before the initial start. if you don't have an old distributor to fashion a primer with, still use a screw driver with a drill to ensure the pump has primed and is providing oil. Then replace the distributor and crank it up.
Click to expand...

I've never been able to do this although it's been recommended often. If you try to spin the oil pump with the distributor drive, you wind up spinning the cam and engine with the drive gear which is not practical to say the least. If you remove the drive gear and spin with a screwdriver, there is nothing to seal the pump cavity and you can't build pressure. Looks like you might be able to spin it with an spare oil pump drive shaft or separate the one you have from the gear, which I have not tried. I'd like to hear from someone who has.
Perhaps another reason to use the starter.
Tom
 
Fortunately the TR cams are very mild and the engine forgiving. In a high lift flat tappet engine, spinning a fresh motor with the plugs out will kill the cam, as the cam sees no lubrication until the crank starts slinging oil at speed. If minimum cranking prevents killing a performance motor, then it must be good practice for even a tractor motor.
 
Just had a memory pop up. I really don’t know if wear occurs most at start up, but I do know the really pricy engines, like Rolls Merlins, Wrights, and many industrial diesels came from the factory with pre-lubes. Those building real horsepower seem to think oil pressure for starting is important.
 
Back
Top