Topic: Oil what?

[The Gurg]

Baby steps right: just reassembled the countershaft in the transmission. Painstaking making sure gears and circlips are all oriented correctly. I didn’t put assembly lube under the gears. Can I lubricate without disassembly? Or is that not enough?

While we’re on the subject of assembly lube, where and how liberally do I apply: Transmission bearings don’t get any. Do they need a spray? Crankshaft bearings get assembly lube in between the crankshaft and bearing, but not between the bearing and case, right? I had a shop do the valves, so they should be good and lubed, right?

[DaveBarbier]

Correct, no lube between bearing shells and case. Yes lube between bearing shells and crank.

Unsure how deep you got in the build but you can lube the transmission by pouring a little oil on to it. You don’t need to remove and lube each gear individually. Assembly lube is good but oil is fine too.

Really, as longs as the cam and crank are lubed before startup everything else will get oil pretty quickly. How liberally? Go nuts but don’t overfill the oil. If you’re using assembly lube though a good film is fine. It’s good to fill the oil pump and slap it on the motor so it’s primed. But I didn’t do that on my 550 and it was fine. Got oil pressure in less than 10 seconds after start up. I did prime my 650 oil pump and I didn’t notice any difference.

[The Gurg]

Really appreciate you taking the time to answer my newb question! Great answer, helps a ton!

[DaveBarbier]

Really appreciate you taking the time to answer my newb question! Great answer, helps a ton!

Glad to help

[dave500]

polish and fit dry the shell backs.

[PeWe]

If oil pump has been apart or lost its oil when off the engine it need to be filled with oil so it can pump oil.

Drain pump completely in a box of oil covering it. Rotate the sprocket a lot so bubbles will leave, both directions. You will feel when it work properly if you cover one of the 2 holes near its sprocket with your thumb that will feel the under pressure. Rotate in other direction if you do not feel anything.

If no under pressure is possible, you need to loosen the pressure releif valve and the other valve to let air out when rotating the sprocket, pump still drained in oil bath.
I had to do that on my last 2 pump rebuilds.
This is very important since oil will otherwise not be pumped and crank bearings will suffer first, then cam.

I think that priming pump with very thin oil is easier to make it functional, letting air out. Mix oil and naphta might be one way.