I have completed a rebuild on a 4.2 and getting ready to install. However with plugs removed I was hand cranking the engine [which is on a stand] to see if I can feed oil up to the camshafts with the banjo bolt loosened but I was unsuccessful and so was wondering if by hand cranking it’s too slow, and the pump is just not able to suck with air in all the pipes and galleries.
The starter can do it, barely, if the plugs are out. It can take 45 seconds or so though, more even if the oil filter is empty.
I don’t have a spare bell housing to mount a starter, so what you are saying is that once hooked up it will take 30 to 45 seconds to charge the system, so its futile doing hand rotation to prime as it will never build up pressure.
Thank the Lord I pre lubed all the bearings
Possibly if you were the Flash, or Superman you could spin it fast enough 
When mine was assembled I filled the cams with oil before putting the covers on. Some people use a hand pump attached to one of the oil plug holes on the side. That will work, but the oil pump won’t unless turned over once a second or so. I just hit the starter for a while until the needle budged, and then connected the coil and started it.
Thanks Erica
Will give an update in a couple of months.
My mind plays tricks on me and is telling me I forgot to install the oil pump or something
Look over at the bench…
Thanks Paul, Thankfully my 71 year old mind was fully in control when l did the assembly.
Morris
Good onya: my 63-year old mind is rarely in the same room as me…
Before I cranked the engine after a complete rebuild, I bought a cheap garden sprayer pump, added oil to it and was able to get 20 psi in the main gallery and had oil appear out of the cam bearings
Great idea, I’ll give that a try.
Ta
Im sure that it’s a case of over kill but I’ve done the same thing for many years!
It is, but one can never overprime the ‘mind dyno’’
The value of overkill should never be underestimated…
I realize that I am 4 days late to the party, but if your concern scuffing the cams or followers, you can easily remedy that anxiety. If you remove the cam covers, you will note that the tappets are inclined roughly 45 degrees. There is a trough running front to back along the bottom of the tappets. When the engine is running, that trough fills up, then maintains an oil level. Every rotation of the cam lobe pushes the tappet down into the oil pool where the lobe and tappet meet. This oil level does not drain back to the sump when the engine is not running, so it is in place on start up. If you fill this trough with oil before your first start up, you need not have any concern that you are running the cams and tappets dry.
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Thanks Mike
Seeing that the exhaust side is already oiled with adding 7 quarts all i have to do is remove the inlet cover and add a little in the chambers, lucky for me I placed the gaskets dry.