Bad Hadraulic Lifters, Maybe?

dodge freak said

You gotta prime a new oil pump with oil before installing it; if you did not it never suck any oil up and just froze from lack of oil.

Pour some oil in from the top of the oil pump and then I like to drop the pump in a small tub of oil and spin away to get it working. Messy but works. You never ever install a dry oil pump--unless you can pressure feed the oil lines from the filter area--shop equipment stuff most of us do not have

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Totally not true on pre oiling the pump. Like stated earlier by fishy68 the tolerances are so tight it will suck oil no problem. I have never pre primed a pump. However I do fill the oil filter with oil before I prime the engine with a drill. I have never had an oiling issue, ever.

Another thing to watch out for is the clocking of the pickup. If its too far one way or the other the rods can smack the pick up on rotation... You would have to be pretty far off but it's happened. Knock knock noise.......