[TnVTX]

This is from my first rebuild failure:
http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...d.php?t=505258
So, I had the machine shop inspect everything closely since I didn't want a repeat failure. This time, I paid them to assemble the short block, as I didn't trust myself from the previous failure.
They set the clearances after turning the crank, ditched the RAIV 80# oil pump for a stock 60# pump, deep sump Moroso pan & pickup.... all of this for nothing!
100 miles on the new motor & I drain the oil, pull the filter dump it and out comes the copper again
Jeez, what the hello could be causing this? I'm freakin' broke and can't afford to keep throwing money at this combo.

[racegto65]

(The outer main bearing still had silver on them, while the inner mains were all down into the copper.
And, most of all the rods were wiped out too, with #4 being the worst)

This was from your first post and if I 'm reading it right it sounds like you may have a line bore problem causing the inner mains to scrub and then block oil to the rods causing them to go.

[hectore3]

I'd locate a new machine shop first.

[TnVTX]

They used a Sunnen line hone, and they are a race engine shop, so I assume they can line bore correctly, but, that sounds like something that needs to be rechecked.
I just wish there was another shop close to me that knew Pontiacs.
This was the only shop around that even had torque plates for Ponchos.
Is it possible for the block to be flexing under hard load? (even though it is short-filled hard blok'd)?

Or...In High Performance Pontiac magazine (April issue), Racekrafters had a SD455 do the same thing even after they knew it had a bearing wipout problem. I never saw anything printed after that issue telling us what their finding was. (They had been told it's possible for the oil galley to crack, bleeding off oil pressure before the bearings, and only an industrial X-ray could find it).

[Half-Inch Stud]

Sooooo, how do the cam bearings look: visually, with your eyes?

""""""and only an industrial X-ray could find it)."""""" Oooooh, how did those cam bearings look?

[TnVTX]

Originally Posted by Half-Inch Stud

Sooooo, how do the cam bearings look: visually, with your eyes?

""""""and only an industrial X-ray could find it)."""""" Oooooh, how did those cam bearings look?

The motor is still in the car. It will be next weekend before I attempt to pull it.
Last time, the cam bearings looked perfect, so, I'm assuming I will find the same this time.

[dci]

I had a very similar problem with a customers engine. I found that the distributor shaft was machined wrong, and when we tightened the distributor down it was pushing down so hard on the oil pump it made the plate seperate from the pump. This is easy to check even with the engine in the car. Simply drop the distributor in and see if there is any clearance or gap between the distributor housing and the block were the gasket goes.

[screamingchief]

100 miles on the new motor & I drain the oil, pull the filter dump it and out comes the copper again

Your old thread seems to state that your changing the oil and filter,but please tell us exactly how that was done and what oil(s) your using here,as some folks are'nt gonna bother going back and re-reading that other thread,and it is possible you have changed this stuff too.

Far be it from me to "assume" anything...

But I hope by this point (100 miles),that the oil/filter have been changed at least twice,once right after cam break-in,and again after the first test drive,say 20-50 miles or so.

I usually will have changed mine 3-4 times by 100 miles,once right after initial break-in,then again after a few hours run time doing the initial tune/dial in work after the break-in process,another change after the initial test drive (20-40 miles),and then again after the next short drive at 70-80 or so miles.

New motors will break down the oil in a big hurry,and lots of trash is circulating thru them at that point,changing the oil & filter gets that junk outta there hopefully,plus if the rings dont seat almost immediately a fair amount of fuel can get past the rings and contaminate the oil in a hurry as well,so keeping fresh oil in the crankcase is vital during this early run time.

Also,do use stuff like a magnetic drain plug and a filter mag during this period (best to use these all the time really...),keeps all that abrasive crap away from the bearings.

I also said this in the previous thread,but it was largely ignored,so I will repeat myself here,,,I do not use (nor recommend) the multi-viscosity oils for break-in,,,or for these early miles either really,,,I only switch to the M/V oils after things are all proven to be copasetic with regards to the motor condition.

Which straight weight oil I use for a particular engine depends on a few different variables like the engines clearances and the ambient temps and such.

Which additives a fella decides to use for flat tappet/break-in protection is up to them,I dont really get in to that much,as everybody has an opinion on that and that is really a discussion in and of itself.

And then there are the engine temp issues I mentioned too,that is,you stated the engine temp never at any time got over the 160 degree thermostat temp setting,this is not a good thing either,the oil needs to get hot enough to burn off the moisture in the crankcase or it can produce compounds like acids and such and these can cause significant problems with components like bearings and such.

So I suggested that if you know you have a "problem child" of an engine,you'd be wise to properly sample the oil at all early changes and send it to a lab for testing to find any issues that are'nt apparent to the naked eye,as some issues are at the microscopic level and there is no way for a layman to discern these beyond making wild a$$ guesses at their cause.

New info here is the fact that your block has the short fill of hard-block.

Do you have any idea what the oil temps look like???

It's not entirely unheard of to have low coolant temps and sky high oil temps with this done,the fill reduces the heat transfer away from that portion of the block into the coolant and can affect both the coolant temps (these drop lower) and the oil temps significantly (these go up),and with dino based oils you have a pretty narrow temperature range where the oil likes to live.

Another reason to be real careful with the oil during this period.

Anyhow just some suggestions,not sure they help,but look at them as food for thought.

HTH.

[screamingchief]

dci:
I had a very similar problem with a customers engine. I found that the distributor shaft was machined wrong, and when we tightened the distributor down it was pushing down so hard on the oil pump it made the plate seperate from the pump. This is easy to check even with the engine in the car. Simply drop the distributor in and see if there is any clearance or gap between the distributor housing and the block were the gasket goes.

I wondered if you'd see this Don,as you posted in the previous thread.

That was a real common deal a few years back,and there was an article in HPP about this syndrome,around the same time we caught this happening on a friends car before it was assembled and fired.

Ever since I check that as SOP.

Just make sure there is some amount of play in the shaft when it's all buckled up.

Grab the shaft and see that it moves up and down a bit.

Some combinations of shafts and distributors have slightly different machining and this can affect their "stack-up" length.

The article was Lube Job: Setting up your pontiac's oil pump drive system,December 2002 Pontiac high performance magazine,written by Thomas A. DeMauro,w/commentary by Jim Taylor of JTES.

Good article,much like the HPP cam eccentric article by Spotty,have seen these mistakes happen enough to know many could use articles like these to help them keep them making the same mistake.

I'll see if I can get a good scan of that "lube job" article and maybe post it in another thread here just for reference for other folks...A

[TnVTX]

If the oil pump plate was being pushed away, would'nt my oil pressure show on the low side?

As far as cam break-in, it's the same cam & lifters as last time, so it was already broke in. The cam & lifters looked great, so I reused them.

I used Rotella 30w with Lucas addititive for assy lube this time.

The rings cut in quick this time (last time it took awhile), and the oil didn't smell contaminated.

Since it's hardblok'd, I was told to use a 160 thermostat to keep oil temps down. I used a temp gun on the sump, and it showed oil temps of ~180degrees.

The Moroso pan comes with a magnetic bolt. It didn't have much of anything on it. It wasn't until I dumped the WIX filter upside down and the trapped bearing material came out.

I also had replaced the stock oil filter adapter with a Kaufman (non-bypass) unit this time.

More to come...

[Will]

In the previous post you linked to, the one rod bearing in the pic looked polished. It wasn't burned or galled and the copper was showing evenly all the way around. The copper was shiny, almost looked like someone had taken a fine scotchbrite pad to the bearing and polished off all the babbit down to the copper.

Is that an accurate assessment of what you've seen in your bearings?

[TnVTX]

Originally Posted by Will

In the previous post you linked to, the one rod bearing in the pic looked polished. It wasn't burned or galled and the copper was showing evenly all the way around. The copper was shiny, almost looked like someone had taken a fine scotchbrite pad to the bearing and polished off all the babbit down to the copper.

Is that an accurate assessment of what you've seen in your bearings?

Yes, that's why I'm skeptical to think it's oil starvation, but, I guess it's still a possibility.

[screamingchief]

If the oil pump plate was being pushed away, would'nt my oil pressure show on the low side?

It does'nt push down hard enough to loose the seal on the gears/cover per-se,but does push it enough to "bow" the cover and lead to rapid wear,and I'm sure it puts a ton of "grit" into the motor from said cover wear,this can wipe out bearings in a hurry if it reaches the bearings.

This is why I mentioned the filter mag,it should trap a significant amount of those magnetic particles present in the oil that make it past the oil pump,this debris collects against the walls of the filter before the oil is fed to the oil galleys.

filtermag.com

And the magnetic drain plug should attract some amount of cam/ring/misc. wear particles before they get to/thru the oil pump itself.

Neither are 100% protection,but they do help a bunch!

And cheap to employ really,buy them once,and use them the life of the engine often.

The rest sounds pretty acceptable (though I've seen some data on the Lucas product that is a bit of a concern),so I'd doubt that's the oil is the root cause here,but taking oil samples for analysis would be much more conclusive data on the oils true condition.

As for the cam and lifters,not sure what to say about that,,,if they were somehow the problem the first time you just carried that over to this attempt,not real sure I would have done that myself,but that was ya'lls call.

All I know is there are lots of details to watch when doing this,and even the most experienced builder can get accustomed to taking certain things for granted till a problem pops up,so dont rush the process,this tear-down should procede at a snails pace and everything should be triple checked and then checked again.

Good luck with it,and dont let it get to you too much,take a breather from the project for a little bit and come back when the frustration level has eased up a bit.

Like I said,food for thought.

[Will]

I don't believe it's oil starvation at all. If there was insufficient oil to the bearings they'd be burned and/or galled.

I will bet money it's a bad finish on your crankshaft.

The crank journals need to be highly polished, to an RA of 3-5 maximum. If they look like they've been polished with a scotchbrite pad or fine sandpaper, they aren't polised enough.

It's also possible they were polished in the wrong direction. The polishing needs to be done in the same direction as crankshaft rotation. Even a highly polished crank journal has little microscopic "teeth" sticking out of it, much like fish scales. If the polishing operation was done wrong, when the engine's running it's like running your hand along the side of a fish from the tail towards the head, the scales will scour the oil away from the bearing surface and scour down the bearing surface also.

Another possibility involving the crank is that the journals aren't round. I would expect someone would have checked them, but maybe not? If they are not perfectly round they'll do the same thing to your bearings.

I have had two cranks from one grinder where the main journals were not all ground on the same centerline, or the crank was bent by the grinder in handling. Each journal measured round with a micrometer but if you laid the crank in the block then put a dial indicator on a journal and rotated the crank you could measure as much as .001" wobble. This only happens on the mains though and your problem seems to be centered more on the rods.

Good crank grinders are hard to find these days. I've had two engines ruined by lousy crank grinding. So, my money's on poor surface finish or journals that aren't round.


One other possibility - did you install screw-in plugs in the front oil gallery holes behind the timing chain? If those plugs are inserted too far they interfere with the oiling passages. Just something else to check out.

Good luck. Believe me, I know your frustration. I spent a ton of money on my old 440 combo to basically build it twice and it still ended up with problems.

[Will]

One more thing - if the clearance on the distributor/oil pump shafts is the culprit as has been suggested, removing the bottom plate from the oil pump will show a problem immediately. There should be no appreciable wear on the bottom plate of the pump. Maybe some light marks from the gears running against the plate, but no scoring or real wear. Something else to check.

[DPlum]

Good crank grinders are hard to find ck all galley plugs were installed and does your shop do there own cranks

[Jack Gifford]

Along the lines of the concern about main bores being aligned- any possibility of a block-integrity issue (like a crack) allowing block distortion when stressed? Was the bare block magnafluxed by a trusted shop?

[TnVTX]

Originally Posted by pontiac jack

Along the lines of the concern about main bores being aligned- any possibility of a block-integrity issue (like a crack) allowing block distortion when stressed? Was the bare block magnafluxed by a trusted shop?

Yes, the block was mag'd & water passages were capped off & pressure tested. Then the caps were cut, and block align bored.

[TnVTX]

I was able to freely spin the crank on the new bearings before final assembly, with the mains torqued down.
If the align bore job was botched, wouldn't the crank show some resistance?

[Tim Corcoran]

Is this an aftermarket cast crank? My first thought was something amiss about the crank. My second thought was some kind of oil starvation to the crank and rods.

Tim C