Assuming all goes well, within the next few days I’ll have a complete oil system again. Seeing that there is a new oil cooler going in, and new oil filter, I’d like to crank the engine over without having it fire, to build up the oil pressure first.
So what’s the procedure here? Do I just pull the king leads off the distributor and the fuel pump fuse (wherever it is)? Or is there some other way that I’m supposed to do it?
On my Ford I’d just pull the coil pack connector and maybe the fuel pump fuse. On an old carburetted thing I’d just pull the king lead off the coil. The XJS is a different beast though. I’d rather be safe when it comes to the Marelli ignition, I gather it’s a total drama queen and I really don’t want to give it any excuse to break. Is pulling the two kings leads off going to annoy it?
I’ve got at least a few which are currently stuck in the heads. I removed a plug not long ago and it looked ok, tried to remove the same one on the other bank and it wouldn’t budge. I’ll sort them out later.
That’s a bit of an issue: with heads in situ, about all you can do is delicately, as far as is possible, put pressure on the stuck plugs,and when they break loose, run them back and forth (up/down), in increasing arcs, and hope like hell the threads don’t come with them.
That’s probably what I’ll do when I get around to doing the plugs. To be fair I never tried soaking them or using a larger bar. I didn’t want to open up a can of worms.
Where this car has had leaky rocker cover gaskets for probably decades, the spark plug channels are full of dirt, so I was going to sort out the gaskets first and give everything a good clean before tackling the spark plugs
You can prime the system by using one of the tapped holes where the oil pressure gauge sensor fits at the back of the V.
Rig up a container to fit and load it with oil. The oil will work its way down to the oil gallery feeding the crankshaft and into the camshafts. That is on the downstream side of the oil filter. Filters with a non return valve will not let the oil go further.
If you defeat the valve the oil can flow into all the oil lines and pump.
I would always do this before firing up an engine that has not been run for a long time.