Oil Pump Main Gear Play

[LTD Project]

Cant find anything on this in the manual so maybe it is not important...

There is visible play of the main gear on it's shaft. See vid..... sorry cant attach .mov file from my mobile, the play is about 1 mm

Is this normal / acceptable?

[gray]

do you mean the oil pump drive gear has slack on its shaft ( maybe caused by wear in the locating pin or its recess in the gear itself) or do you mean there is excessive lash between the drive gear and what drives it - the gear on the crank? A small amount of lash would be normal I suppose. There are other possibilities too- ovality in the central hole in the oil pump drive gear, or a bent oil pump central shaft caused by a previous rebuild assembling it without making sure the gear was meshed with the crank properly . Or even the oil pump being loose on its 3 mounting bolts .
Bottom line - we need a bit more info , but might be normal

[LTD Project]

Thanks for jumping in Gray.

I will answer your questions as best as I can.

The pump is out of the engine, so your suggestions re installation / fit to crank are n/a in this case.

I am asking about the main gear on it's shaft. So possibly the central hole in the main gear is worn, oval or otherwise. Or the shaft has wear on it too, perhaps both.

If you hold gear at it's toothed edge and move backwards and forwards on a plane parallel to the shaft, the play (movement) can be seen as well as felt, to the tune of about 1 mm. There is no mention of checking for this play in the workshop manual, so maybe it is ok???

I will strip the pump further to see if there is anything more obvious to be gleaned. I will also try to to liberate another oil pump to see if it is the same. (Always the chance that one might display the same wear.... but if it doesnt, then I will know something is not right.)

On the commonly known areas of wear on these engines after 35k miles, is the oil pump normally a problem area?

Thanks