I have a citroen relay 2.2 diesel (transit engine) and have changed the oil pump I want to use the starter to prime the system without starting the engine (want to ensure oil around turbo before starting) What is the best way to achieve this without throwing up fault codes (was thinking disconnect crank sensor), Ta in advance any suggestions

Yeah

In an ideal world you would prime it with no compression to save the shells but imho if it’s just a pump and not a rebuild I’d say so.

Yes Just the pump apparently on some models they (oil pump) can fail at about 80000 miles my van has done 80000 so thought I better change it in case mine was a dodgy one.

Could you just disconnect the fuel line and drop it in a can? might throw up some sort of fuel pressure error though?

When I did my midget last month I just disconnected the HT lead so thinking what the equivalent is, but obviously it’s different in pretty much every way!

It’s only the same effect as draining and replacing the oil, I’d not be too concerned. One start over a lifetime of thousands won’t harm it, it’ll be full in a few seconds.

I had a job in the hot test facility at Dagenham engine plant 2 litre petrol engine line once. Every single engine had the nuts revved off it on starting, to prime the pumps and get the fluids moving round. Completely dry bearings, bores, cams etc. If after 15 seconds no oil pressure, try again. After the second failure, check there was any oil in it. Surprisingly often there wasn’t. They almost always passed the tests after being filled up, and off to a customer, (with 30-40 seconds of totally dry, high speed thrashing). 😮

Can you disconnect/switch off the solenoid do there’s no fuel entering the system and loosen the injectors so there’s no compression. Then it should turn over easily with no stress in the system.
My diesel experience is from a long time ago and mostly agricultural.

Pull either the fuel pump fuse or the EFI relay and then crank it.

* One of the above works on all the cars I’ve had, however the newest car I’ve ever had is from 2006….

TINAS: you’re still chucking on fuel if your doing that though, no? Better to stop fuel than spark, Shirley? No risk of flooding out then.
It’s what I do on my sensitive old wreck (but that’s very prone to flooding)

One easy way to spin over a Diesel engine is to take the glow plugs out. Spin it for a few seconds at a time.

^^^ again though, still chucking fuel in, and then dumping it back out the glow plugs holes into the engine bay…

Plus the old Chestnut of snapping glow plugs, grrrrr (/traumatic flashback)

TINAS: you’re still chucking on fuel if your doing that though, no? Better to stop fuel than spark, Shirley? No risk of flooding out then.
It’s what I do on my sensitive old wreck (but that’s very prone to flooding)

It hadn’t run for about 5 years, it took a while to suck the petrol through anyway!

And I’d already taken the precaution of taking the plugs out and putting a squirt of oil in each bore to make sure it was nice and slippery so flooding/smoking was almost certain.

I used to fill up the new oil filter with oil from the can before fitting it, working on the basis that it gave the pump one less thing to do, even after an oil and filter change.

If the injectors are clean you might be able to pull them out. Generally though on anything with any mileage on it they’ll be an absolute tarred up pig to remove. Crank it without the fuel pump or ECU fuse in? Disconnect the TDC sensor? Though all of these will likely flag an ECU light later on.

Perhaps just not bother. So long as the sump’s full it’ll prime really quickly.

Yes I think i will just start an let idle (checking the oil light does go out) I haven’t seen anything saying there is a specific procedure for this so should be ok

You can just start it. The oil will be round the whole engine and turbo in seconds. The turbo won’t be under any real load at idle speeds plus it should still have oil left in it, unless it’s a brand new turbo

Remember with modern diesels the hp pump will be run off the timing and so you want fuel passing through that all the time it’s on…… Hp fuel pumps do not want to be turned over dry for any length of time.

Some of the suggestions on here are dated/petrol specific in that respect.

If it was me. I’d unplug the crank/cam sensor and turn it over for a bit and then hook it up and fire it up

Thanks for all info I just fired it up and light went out in 5 seconds let it idle for a minute then gave some light revs. Everything seemed ok so will tidy it a bit tomorrow and give it a run. Cheers

I don’t understand why you would need to do that anyway.
If all you’ve done is replace the pump then everything should still be coated in oil from when you last used it…. Unless that was a few years ago.

The old school method for oil pumps I’ve done on full engine rebuilds is to pack the oil pump gears with Vaseline so it primes straight away but it sounds like its fired up okay.

I’d be more concerned about oil supply to the engine than the turbo. Turbo is tolerant to oil starvation, the engine isn’t. On startup the turbo is freewheeling with no load or boost and can easily spin dry for the first few seconds it takes for the engine to start up and start pumping oil round (but of course it won’t be totally dry in reality). If you have any initial oil starvation issues it’s more likely to damage the engine.

If you’re concerned about oil pump failure then replace the pump.

Rusty Nissan has is, the trick is to prime the pump first.
Anyway, glad it went well