I recently torn down the motor and am in the process of rebuilding (just got the block and head back from the machine shop!!!. While waiting for the block and head I broke down the oil pump and cleaned it up. I mic'd all the pieces and everything was spot on with the specs except for the spring. The spring is about nine hundredths of an inch short.
My question is... Can I find this spring anywhere or is it safe to shim? I saw some threads about shimming but never really saw any later responses with results.
#137352, "RE: Oil Pump Spring Replacement" In response to Reply # 0
If you cant find a replacement then I would shim it if I did anything. That spring is for the pressure relief valve and it only comes into effect at higher rpms. I played around with shimming the spring once and the only difference I noticed was higher oil pressure when doing pulls to the high rpm range. If you had an oil pressure gauge before and were getting good pressure I might would just leave it alone. It is accessible once installed on the car so you can always go back and shim or remove the shim if you need to.