Thread: Priming a dry engine

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Originally Posted by glennsexton

A word of advice - use a variable speed 1/2" drill - start slow and go just fast enough to let oil dribble out of the pushrods.

Note the 1/2" drill, it's important. You'll burn up a 3/8" drill, from recent personal experience.

Originally Posted by rspears

Note the 1/2" drill, it's important. You'll burn up a 3/8" drill, from recent personal experience.

It was a heavy-duty 3/8" Milwaukee drill that I had my "unfortunate" oiling experience with. The engine was in the car so I was already stretched across the fender and leaning on the engine propped on my elbows with my face about 4 inches away from the rocker arms. I think it was a 0 - 3,000 RPM drill and I grabbed the trigger - nothing happened for about 10 seconds, motor bogged a bit so I pulled her all the way down and it about jerked out of my hand, whacked the handle against the firewall pushing in that damn little "hold-the-drill-on-button" and 5W-30 shot oil everywhere (my hair, up my nose, in my eyes.. it was bad.) I wanted to be upset by my wife was laughing so hard she nearly wet her pants (at least she had the presence of mind to unplug the drill) so I just chalked one up to a "learning experience". You can't make stuff this up.... It just happen as a part of life!

Soooo now I use the tool and a nice 0-500 RPM 1/2" drill.