Pieces of steel in cylinder??

George Jets said
the force was traveling back down the pushrods back to the cam and the extream high pressure and rotational force smeared the bottom halfs out of the cam bearings.

That would explain the bent pushrod.

sireland67 said
And krazykuda on here made an excellent article to make sure that all of the plugs are in place, I suggest you read it, because there are some hidden ones that can bite you on a rebuild.

Thanks for the tip, I've been browsing the how-to section quite a bit the last few days. Lots of really great info there.

nm9stheham said
Just in case..... You had better check the the valve train to see if the valve retainers were hitting the tops of the valve guides. Any bent pushrods?

Was this extreme cam bearing wear only only a couple of the cam bearings, like 2 and 4, or on all of them?

Put them in order largest to smallest (front to back) and see if the wear is more on one end than the other. Probably not, but just chekcin'.....

One bent pushrod, I believe it was #7 exhaust (?). Obviously I'll be replacing all of them. The extreme wear was on the middle three bearings, and about the same on all three. The two on the ends looked worn, but nowhere close to the ones I took pictures of. The guy at the machine shop said it looked like I lost oil pressure, and I had a long conversation with a buddy of mine who's very knowledgeable and he agreed. He also advised all of the same you guys have been saying - freeze plugs, cam, everything. Especially since I have it apart and it's much easier now than after I put the engine back in (plus I'll have peace of mind knowing everything has been gone through and done right). Of course, this conversation was before I got on here this morning and read the comments, so don't think I'm second guessing you guys!

So, I'm adding an oil pump to the shopping list, and more overtime...