Hi Dan

Are you sure you have the slot on the distributor fully down and engaged with the tang on the oil pump?

If it isn't, it will drive the pump a little bit, giving some oil flow, but not like it's supposed to.

Try sticking a measuring tape down the hole in the block for the distributor and seating it at the TOP of the drive tang on the oil pump.

Then read the measurement at the top edge of the hole in the block.

Then measure that far up the distributor from the UPPER END of the drive slot and make a mark at that spot on the distributor.

With the distributor installed, that mark should be close to lining up with the edge of the block.

Hope that gets you going.  🙂

PS

The above is assuming your engine is the same as my 1929, where the tang is on the oil pump, and the slot is on the distributor, which is the opposite of later engines.

Good advice.

Ole, it really sounds like someone has modified your distributor and oil pump from a '28 4 cylinder. It may be a case of that is what was at hand when the combination was repaired. I personally have never seen that set up on a '29 but it would be possible to make it work. The '29 oil pump body is somewhat of a hold over of the '28 pump casting, in that the impeller for both pumps are the same size, and I think the shafts are the same length. In the attached picture the bottom pump is a '29, and the top pump is a '28. I do not think it would be difficult to mix and match parts in order to use a '28 pump in a '29 block. You would have to use the six cylinder distributor shaft with the oil pump tang from the '28. In reality it should be pretty easy to mount a '29, or '30 oil pump in a '28 and earlier 4 cylinder engine.

I have 3 '29 cars and 2 spare engines for them. On one of them I played around with a '34 oil pump. Mainly because that is what I had laying around. It took a lot of modifications in order to get it to work properly. In retrospect I found it easier to just install a '30 to '32 oil pump. It has an impeller that is 1/8" deeper than the '29, and '28 oil pump impellers, so quite a bit more volume. Remember that they added 2 more cylinders and rocker arm lubrication plus increased the rated rpm by 400 from 2,200 in '28 to 2,600 in '29. When hot my '29 Conv Landau Sedan had quite low pressure with its original pump. The '30 to '32 pump I have in there now works well. 

@arthur-p-sell 

Pretty sure mine is the original setup.

The engine shows little sign of previous work, and the cylinders haven't even been bored oversize (although they do badly need to be).

As you say, both the oil pump AND distributor from a 4 cylinder would need to be used together, necessitating swapping the distributor shafts to get a 6 lobe cam, which are NOT the same length, etc, etc.

Long story short...

My distributor looks like this one, listed as being for 1929-32 on ebay:

@arthur-p-sell 

Also...

Here is a link to a post by BearsFan315 on the old VCCA site regarding his 1929 distributor:

https://vccachat.org/ubbthreads.php/topics/435744/delco-633g-distributor-rebuild.html

As you can see, the slot is in the distributor shaft.

I remembered this because I had to make a special drive tool to prime my oil pump after I had the pan off.  🙂

After seeing your picture I remembered making the oil pump priming tool for my pump when I got the '29 coupe back together 4 years ago. I recently loaned that tool to a fellow member so he could use it on his '29 1-1/2 ton truck. And yes the shaft was as pictured on the distributor. I must have been thinking of the later style for the 216 and 235. Sorry.