Well i assume the OP shaft comes up and in from the bottom, so i figure, drop pan, replace seal which i need to do anyway, get socket, pull out old op shaft, put in new one, reassemble.

 

The shaft can go in from the top if you don't put the clip on it that keeps it from pulling out if it sticks in the distributor when you remove it (the dist.) But if you need to replace seals/gaskets anyway, it seems like a good opportunity. I would try to reinstall the dist. while you have the pan off, then you can play with it from both ends.

 

Yeah sounds like a good idea, considering i went through 1 quart of oil in 4 days i need to seal up that **** leak anyway. plus that way, as you said, i can try from 2 angles, plus, i think the old OP drive must be broken if it's wobbleing like that.

 

Sounds like your day is planned. Let us know how it goes.

 

Any disaster avioiding advice, like, how to remove the old OP shaft and install the new one?

 

Once the pan is off, unbolt the oil pump along with the pickup tube and the shaft pretty much drops out the bottom. Set the shaft in its hex socket in the pump and lift it back into place, guiding the shaft up into its hole as you go. Replace the pump-to-block gasket and tighten the bolts evenly and securely, torqueing to 23-28 ft.-lbs.
Look at the bolt flanges on the pump carefully before and after you bolt them down, I've seen a new pump with a hairline crack that wasn't visible till after it was torqued down. You don't want anyplace that your pump can suck air, for some reason air doesn't lube the bearings very well!
Just go carefully and use common sense, checking things as you go. It's not at all difficult.
For about 28 bucks, you can get a nice silicone rubber one-piece pan gasket that requires no sealer, it's well woth it IMHO. Clean your gasket surfaces well, and inspect the flanges on the oil pan. If they're warped out of shape from overtightening, you can hold the pan on the edge of a hard surface and hammer them flat again with a ball-pien hammer.

 

should i try to install the distributer before i reinstall the op shaft?

 

I suppose you could try that, since you were having problems before with getting it to go in. Then you could feed the shaft up into the botom of the dist. Never tried it that way myself but I don't see any reason not to.

 

I wish i had gotten a better distributer now lol. Oh well, i got a new OP along with the set cause it was the only way to get the gaskets and i didn't want to reuse the old ones. Can i use RTV Black on the OP seals?

 

No! Don't put that crap anywhere near your oil system! Oil pump gaskets can be installed dry, but if you feel you must put something on them, use a very thin coat of a good spray-on sealer like Permatex High-tack.

The problem with silicone is that it's more of an emergency-for-when-you-don't-have-a-gasket type of sealer (that's why it's called "Form-a-Gasket") and it tends to get overused. Chunks of it can break off after it's cured and get sucked into the oil pump, causing all sorts of disaster. I have seen engines built by so-called "Professionals" who just blob that stuff around everywhere that failed catastrophically. Case in point: A few months back I was asked to tear down a Chevy 454 (yeah, I know but sometimes we have to stoop to all sorts of levels to earn a buck!). It had blown up within two weeks of being built, breaking two rods and making a real mess. As I got into the engine I found silicone on virtually every gasket surface, and not just a little, the builder had used a lot of it! A glob had broken loose, got sucked into the oil pump, and that was all she wrote!

Silicone does have its uses, but it should be used very sparingly, like at the corners of oil pan seals if using a conventional 4-piece pan gasket set, or at the corners of intake manifolds (I won't use the stuff in place of intake manifold end seals either, even though that's become the common practice lately).

Okay, my silicone rant is now over!

 

I used it at the ends of my Edlebrock intake. So you say using somthing that makes the surface tacky, like gaskacich or the like is better for the oil pump serfaces?

 

Yup, that was another product that came to mind. It's really more of a cement for holding the gasket in place for assembly than an actual sealer. Just the thing for your application.

 

It's funny cause it smells like barbecue sauce.

 

Hmm, give that a shot and let me know how it tastes on your burgers...