Re: pre-lube prior to first time startup

[rdh@sli.com (Robert D. Houk)]

   I'm getting close to starting the engine of my RS2 equipped TQC!  But 

Cool (and about bloody time, too, I might parenthetically add...).

   before I do, I thought I'd ask how the list felt about prelubing an 
   engine prior to cranking for the first time.

I'm a devout advocate of it! Dunno if the "prelube glop" is really worth
it over just liberally dousing all the bearings/etc with good oil, but
for peace of mind, the extra few dollars is well invested (IMHO).

   ...
   My thought is that the oil pump is not primed (the car has been sitting
   for over a year, so the oil sump is well and truely bone dry), so that all
   it's doing is sucking air.  Question is - how do I prime it??? 

The basic problem with "dry" oil pumps is that they won't self-prime, they
just don't create the vacuum needed to suck that slop ("oil") up the ole
tube. They depend on the liquid to "seal" off the vanes/gears/whatever,
to get effective vacuum/sucking action... (and yeah, I figured this out
the good ole empirical way!)

Any way you can get oil into the pump is fine. On my Ole Europa, the oil
pressure gauge was mechanical, and fed just off the oil pump, so I just
disconnected the gauge, and pumped oil into the oil gauge feed line (se-
veral pumps on the little oil can dood it). I don't remember if the fil-
ters are good for feeding back oil into the pump or not (the turbo filter
that is). There is supposed to be a "tap" (or gallery, or ???) on the oil
pump for a pressure sensor, you could just remove the blocking plug and
squish some oil in there -- all you need is enough to "wet" the vanes
(gears) and seal the damn thing off. Any access to the block's oil gal-
leries should theoretically work if you dump in enough oil, but the closer
to the pump you can get, the easier it should be. Your idea of the turbo
oil line should work, modulo getting back through the turbo oil filter...

Get that baby goin'! 

					-RDH