I picked up an 84 shovel that had the front cylinder let loose and destroyed the base. I tore it down and flushed out the bottom end and buttoned it back up. Had it running for 4 or 5 heat cycles on the new pistons and just as I was going to take it for a road beat I lost oil pressure. Long story short, there were chunks of metal in the oil pump and it wasn't spinning (the root cause of my oil pressure problem). It doesn't appear that the keys are sheared and the pinion shaft still turns when I kick it over. I grabbed onto the oil pump gear and ran the kicker a couple times and was able to stop the gear from turning without too much effort.

My question is, if the 4 gears that make up the oil pump weren't turning (because of the wedged junk in the driven gear on the scavenge side) and the engine was running, is the pinion gear designed to slip or will I need to tear into the cam area where the pinion gear is?

Any help for a noob shovel guy is appreciated

 

had you posted when you got it the guys would have talked you into what should have been done

But that aside all is not lost -

1 you need to remove the oil pump and all 3 key ways are to be replaced if the pump is scrached deep it needs replacement if not you will loose the engine - picture the pump scraches - the passage way from the cam cover area to the inside set of gears had those little pieces, and that is what did this - when you hosed it out you missed them

2 you need to remove the pinion assembly ( the nut unscrews backwards ) all the way to the bearing and replace the 2 key ways in it

CAUTION -- you should find one or more keyway broken and what ever it was driving is now suspect to internal cracking not maybe

if you were local i could help but ( home is cool ) but its no help - dont skimp on any of this

last thing -- the motor was running fine at the time it had no oil pressure and you shut it off or did it stop on it own