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oil pump rebuild

autoloclys

Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2016
Location
Boston MA
I got the blown engine out of my wagon yesterday and am going through the new engine to replace it.

My oil pump is out of spec in backlash by a few thou, but otherwise fine. The bentley manual says replace the gears, but they dont seem to be available. Money IS an object so...

whats the best option?

1. put it back together and dont worry about it

2. buy a $100 aftermarket pump and dont worry about it

3. go crazy trying to find gears to rebuild it because its a volvo pump and volvo=better

4. get a paper route so i can afford an NOS volvo pump


edit, the new engine is a squirter block and i see now that the oil pump has a deeper housing and taller gears than the old one,so maybe option 1 is my only option?
 
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Whatever you decide, I strongly suggest you ONLY use Volvo oil pump seals as the aftermarket seals harden and shrink. Volvo oil pump seals are soft and spongy and now are red, but used to be yellow. All of the aftermarket oil pump seals I have seen were black and made of a harder materiel.
 
If this is your daily driver, quickest road to recovery is the best option. Throw a used pump in it and go. Why'd you take it apart in the first place? Low pressure? Have driven a few 300,000+ mile B230 cars now, none of them with oil pressure issues from the pump itself. One had a boogered transfer pipe o-ring.
 
Autozone has the best price I've found for Melling oil pumps.

https://www.autozone.com/external-engine/oil-pump/melling-oil-pump/179347_271010_20972?&searchText=m181

I took one apart to verify that it has the same size gears as Volvo's high volume pump and it does.

Volvo gears on the left, Melling gears on the right.

VolvoMellingOilPump6.jpg
 
melling oil pump

When I rebuilt my 85 B21ft I was going to use a used one but then decided to get a new Melling pump,rebuilt 5 years ago and still pumping strong. Don't take a chance on used.
 
If it has pumped debris best to replace.

Id take a high mileage pump over one that was in a ruined or flat cam motor (that pumped garbage).
 
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