1970 T/A Challenger with no oil pressure.

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IQ52

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The 340 T/A block is long gone so he is running the 6-Pack on a 360. He had back surgery and cannot drive the 4-spd very long before he hurts too much. So when he goes out with the T/A he takes a relief driver. While the relief driver was bringing the car back he say's, "I was so scared driving a nice car like that T/A I was watching all the gauges very carefully. While I was watching the oil pressure gauge it instantly dropped to zero and I shut it off and coasted to a stop."

When they got it back to town we cut the oil filter open and it was chuck full of bearing material. Instant oil pressure drop, uh huh.

Never jump to conclusions. Turns out he was right. The pump sucked enough bearing material into itself that it seized and sheared the hex off the intermediate shaft. Immediately no oil pressure.

So anyway, we get to build a new 360 for the T/A. Ah shucks.
 
"No, it was running great until it just lost oil pressure and I shut it off."

Getty's TA 015.jpg
Getty's TA 014.jpg
Getty's TA 011.jpg
Getty's TA 010.jpg


How about the bearing material up in the lifter valley?

Oh yeah, the crankshaft counterweights got so hot that they turned straw/copper color, 400-440 degrees F.

Wasn't making sound, just lost oil pressure.
 
Perhaps........

the T/A was too 'hot' for the 360?

Organ donors should be a closer DNA type or the donor organ could be rejected. ;-)
 
Was there coolant or gas in the oil? Any idea on why the bearings gave up?
 
Dartish said:
Was there coolant or gas in the oil? Any idea on why the bearings gave up?
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No idea at this point. The only contaminants I could see were very large pieces of metal.

CurtDawg510 said:
Almost looks like golden nuggets all over in your engine!!
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Not my engine, customers engine.

Though I was sure I was told the engine was a 360, during the disassembly I discovered it was a 1972 year casting 340. We are not going to reuse anything but the heads, oil pan, windage tray and intake from the blown engine. So, I picked up a 1970 standard bore 340 from the customer's house along with a standard/standard forged crank and some rods. While moving some boxes and other parts so I could get to the block, I had to move two cylinder heads in plastic bags. I could feel through the bags they had adjustable rockers still bolted to them. The owner says, "Those are some original T/A heads that have never been touched."

I got the block out and reverently set the plastic bags back against the wall. Smiling to myself, I took the non-T/A block (I checked, believe me), crank and rods back to the shop in the bed of my truck thinking along the way, "Whoa Nellie, there are still some treasures to be discovered out there in this world."
 
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There is plenty of treasures left, my neighbor just passed away, his boy had the task of moving alot of complete E-bodies from his dads property. Sitting side by side was a AAR and TA, not one bolt removed from them, 440, 383, 340 bill-board cars, several 340 cars.
His boy moved them because he was afraid that somebody might steal parts off of them.
His dad was a-little eccentric, there were tore up 340's laying in the yard, stack's of shaker hoods, would not sell anything.
 
sireland67 said:
There is plenty of treasures left, my neighbor just passed away, his boy had the task of moving alot of complete E-bodies from his dads property. Sitting side by side was a AAR and TA, not one bolt removed from them, 440, 383, 340 bill-board cars, several 340 cars.
His boy moved them because he was afraid that somebody might steal parts off of them.
His dad was a-little eccentric, there were tore up 340's laying in the yard, stack's of shaker hoods, would not sell anything.
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The worst kind of hoarder! Not going to do anything with them , but won't sell them!
 
I've got an uncle that's the same way. Challenger T/A, panther pink, complete, barracuda formula s,dart gts, tons and tons of 340s, a complete spare t/a motor, and a whole grove full of parts cars. Hasn't touched anything in over 20 years and won't sell a bolt off anything. So sad!!
 
SGBARRACUDA said:
The worst kind of hoarder! Not going to do anything with them , but won't sell them!
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The guy bought them when they were not worth anything, drove them all for a little while, then he would buy another one and do the same thing.
 
Had a neighbor just like that. Had air grabber Road Runner hoods 68,69,70,71 that were stacked outside and rusted to hell by the time I found them, 8 3/4 SG third members buried in the ground. A complete 68 Road Runner I tried to buy for over 30 years that by the time it was offered to me it had gone back to the earth. I did buy everything he had left when he ran out of crack money. Yeah it sucks people are like that.
 
Ouch lol..... Hopefully all your hard parts can be salvaged. I bet that thing sounded great on her last journey....

JW
 
SLOPAR72 said:
Ouch lol..... Hopefully all your hard parts can be salvaged. I bet that thing sounded great on her last journey....

JW
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The crank shaft is burnt black at the journals and got straw colored out to the counterweights (400-440 degrees F). The rods are burnt black 1/2 way to the pins. The metal got between the pistons and the cylinder walls, so the pistons are trashed. The block is already .030" over but might be saved at .040". Cannot trust the oil pump pickup, as it let huge chunks of bearing material into the seized oil pump. Intermediate shaft broken. Do you trust the main cap bolts that have been over 500 degrees? Nope. Cam and lifters were worn out 10,000 miles ago. Can maybe work with the 1,000 mile "O" heads, must replace the tired and broken valve springs (strange story there, remember, this engine was running silent and great until it suddenly lost oil pressure when the pump seized).
 
IQ52 said:
The crank shaft is burnt black at the journals and got straw colored out to the counterweights (400-440 degrees F). The rods are burnt black 1/2 way to the pins. The metal got between the pistons and the cylinder walls, so the pistons are trashed. The block is already .030" over but might be saved at .040". Cannot trust the oil pump pickup, as it let huge chunks of bearing material into the seized oil pump. Intermediate shaft broken. Do you trust the main cap bolts that have been over 500 degrees? Nope. Cam and lifters were worn out 10,000 miles ago. Can maybe work with the 1,000 mile "O" heads, must replace the tired and broken valve springs (strange story there, remember, this engine was running silent and great until it suddenly lost oil pressure when the pump seized).
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Sound like last week at work. Shrapnel laying amuck and after my CSI work my question to the operator of said it equipment was you don't hear the banging sound that caused this? Oh, I thought it should sound like that..... After 30 years of running this brand of machine it's would be unfair to think you would have noticed that lol..... Sometimes we just become our own worst enemy's lol....

For this one I say if in doubt throw it out. Not much more to say than it keeps your busy and clean, clean, clean... And then clean some more...

JW
 
IQ52 said:
silent and great
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They all run silent and great before they go into pieces...

Little anecdote here, or actually two, both from my younger sister, decades ago.

She returned home from school with her little moped (called mofa around here) without exhaust (it fell off),
pretending she hadn't realized it.

She called being stranded on the highway with her little Fiat 500, mumbeling it "wouldn't accelerate anymore".
My younger brother went over to have a look (something got unhooked was his suspicion)... she'd lost a valve and the internals of the little two-banger looked like they went through a shredder.
 
I had an engine spin the mains like that, but with only a slight bluing in the webs and caps...... it sounded like it had 2 or 3 cinder blocks in the oil pan. It was not quiet!

Line bored the mains, turned the crank, and it ran another 85k miles. But not nearly the damage was done as in this engine.... amazing.
 
We're going to rebuild this critter. Got a 1970 standard bore 340 and a used factory forged crank. Redoing the previous (20 years ago) ported "O" heads with 11/32 2.02/1.60 Chevy valves. Curious to get the heads on the flowbench with the old valves first and see what is going on. Running a custom solid flat tappet, edm lifters, Scat I-beams and Ross pistons. Will reuse the Crane Gold Race rockers that came off the destroyed engine.
 
Change in plans. Going with one of the old Mopar experimental flexi-stroker cranks and adjustable rods. The engine stroke increases as the rpms go up and the rods shorten themselves.
 
Called Comp Cams to order the solid flat tappet cam for the rebuild. Gave them the lobe numbers I wanted and the LSA & ICL specs.

Says the engineer, "You don't want that. You want this catalog grind 'blah-blah-blah' ".

(Me) No I don't. I want what I gave you. Will you grind it?

(Comp) Sure.....

(Me) Okay thanks.
 
Cam and everything is here now. Going to have the heads surfaced and pick up the block and balanced rotating assembly tomorrow. Damn shame the owner died four days ago.
 
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