Ford (to me anyway) made the most idiotic oil pump drive shaft arrangement that could have been made... nothing holds the shaft in the oil pump... when you pull the distributor, 8 times out of 10 it pulls the shaft out of the pump and 5 out of those 8 times it drops it in the oil pan. Of course that's IF the builder puts the retainer up where it should be

that little retainer washer arrangement is useless in that case. When you finally do grab the shaft with a magnet or a pickup tool (through that 1/2" hole) there is no way to see where it goes so you just lift, poke, lift, poke, lift, poke...drop, fish fish fish.. find it...repeat . An hour of your life wasted.

I'm sure there are ways to eliminate this problem when building and installing... i.e. tack weld on the shaft, epoxy it in pump, locktite...or put the dang retainer ring in the proper place to begin with.... but how to remedy on a completed engine... I can fix this at rebuild time... but I hope I'm 100,000 miles from there... just a thought I had.... if I pull timing chain cover can you get to that retainer from the front... I can see the chain thru the dist hole... wonder if there is access thru there

is there anyway to secure the shaft in the pump (that's full of oil) after the build without tearing something down... cause if I ever have to pull the distributor I'll have to play this game again... I hate this hole

Hoping you BB gurus have a fix for this... I really hate this hole

tia
john

 

They are designed with that retainer so they stay in the pump, which also prevents you from removing it from the top. In your case the retainer may have failed and could be floating around in the pan. There have been many threads about this in the past, and guys have tried things like locktite and silicone on the pump end or dizzy end with some luck. If it were mine, I'd be pulling the motor, pan and oil pump to ensure I didn't have anything left floating in there. I've never had the shaft try to come with, but I always battle with trying to line up the shaft with the bottom of the dizzy when I reinstall it. A little bit of grease helps.

 

thanks Cody... mine is still on the shaft but set too low to keep the shaft in the pump...When we built the engine I epoxied a good sized magnet to the bottom of the pan sump to attract any metal... so hopefully if anything fails it will get grabbed by the magnet... I don't know what to try with all the oil in the pan... seems like locktite would need a clean shaft and cup to work well... and the grease helps at the top end... done that before thanks for the info

john

 

I install the oil pump with shaft in place with engine upside down if it comes out of the pump then I move clip up until the shaft can not come out. I