When priming the oil pump should you be able to see oil coming from the rocker arms or around the valve springs if you have a valve cover off?

 

Yes you actually want to prime until you see oil coming thru all the pushrods and down the rockers.

 

If you use a screwdriver type tool you may only see oil from one bank and not the other. It would be helpful if you could make a tool from the shaft of an old distributor or buy a tool made for that purpose.

 

Unless you are going to do this a lot you can borrow the tool from Autozone, you pay for it and then get your money back when you return it. You need the collar that is about 3/4 the way up the distributor shaft housing to properly prime the engine.

 

Without the collar, you will not prime the top end.

 

The outside circumference of the dist housing forms part of the oil gallery. Without it the camshaft oiling stops at the dist and dumps back to the sump.

You can make the proper tool from an old Chev v8 distributor of any kind. Grind the teeth off the gear (or cut in a lathe) and cut off the top end of the shaft, leaving enough to chuck in your drill.

Really though, it's overkill. If you are working with a rebuilt engine everything has been lubed at assembly. If you prime the system until you start to see the needle rise on an attached oil pressure gauge you have filled the filter and the galleries to the crank. The rest will comfortably run on the assembly lube until the oil gets there. It's exactly what happens every day you start it.

Steve g

 

Thank you everyone, I had an home made priming tool, but did not know about the one from autozone. Got that and did the priming, no oil was coming out of the push rod or anywhere near the spring.
So, here's why it prompt to check for lack of oil. I was cruising when I noticed the water temp was around 210, during normal running the temp is just pass the line before the 210 mark. Then the engine died, it would start back up with a noise similar what a water pump would make when the bearinf is gone. Town the car home, it started normal to get it off the trailer into the garage, but that noise.

I popped the left bank valve cover to see if any of the rocker arm is making the noise (the noise appeared to be coming from that side). All was good, started it (started normal). No oil coming from any of the push rod, hence I decided to verify with the priming process.

Any idea what's contributing to the noise related to the oil pump? How much damage can happen if oil pump is shot and ran engine for a few minutes?

Drained the oil to remove the pan and do some looking around from underneat.