Bad Day, Very Bad day

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dustermaniac

dustermaniac

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I just recently completed a new cam, lifters, distributor, heads and timing chain in my car. I fired up the car the other day and everything seemed fine. Good oil pressure, no lifter noise, ran the engine for about 20 mins at or around 2500 RPM'S to break in the camshaft. I did have a small oil leak at the timing cover but I was able to seal it up without needing to tear it back down. Changed the oil/filter and drained the assembly lube out, ran the car about 10 miles the other day and it ran great, plenty of power, nice throttle response. Well this morning I have the day off so I decided to bring the car to the car wash to clean it up and get it ready to go cruising again. Drove to the car wash and cleaned the car up. started it up after cleaning it and oil pressure was 65 lbs on the gauge, started back home, went about 4 miles and looked at the gauge I had 0 lbs of oil pressure. I was able to pull off the main road and limp to a stop, engine was sounding like a sewing machine. shut it down, opened the hood and pulled the oil stick, oil in the lower end is still clean but when I open the oil cap on the valve covers I see white coagulated oil in the top end. Called a tow truck and just got it towed home. A bad day all around. I will pull the valve covers tomorrow and have a look see. I will also drain out the oil in the crankcase and look at it also. Wondering if the oil pump **** it's pants? I do not know. I will also pull the distributor and check the oil pump shaft and see if it is broke. I do not believe it would run if the oil shaft was broke???? I do not know......
 
Mechanical gauge? Clean oil in the crankcase tells me you don't have a water in the oil problem. White sludge on the oil cap can be condensation mixing with a little oil on the top end. But you should still have oil preasure.
 
Weird, youd think if oil coagulated white on the filler cap, then it would also show on the dipstick. Is oil pump driven off the cam?? If so, I would think engine would still run until it seized.(hopefully not!!) As 66340 said, hope the damage is minimal.
 
Solid lifters or hydraulics? If they are hydraulics, and you had 0 oil pressure, you wouldn't have an engine sounding like a sewing machine unless you caught it at the moment you lost pressure. Is the radiator still topped off?

Trying to be positive, you may have two minor problems (I hope).
1) bad gauge, or line, etc.
2) the steamed up oil in the breather could be something simple, but you won't know for sure until you drain the oil. You might have caught it so quick, that the oil in the pan still appears clean on the dipstick.
But the first thing I always want to do on a deal like this, is drain the oil into a clean pan. I use a paper paint strainer, to see if it catches anything. But you motor sounds like a sewing machine, so you are just looking for water, and that will be obvious when you drain it, if there is any there.
If you find some, then I would run a compression test. If the radiator was a little low, you may just have a leak between the intake and the heads, have seen that before on a SBM.
 
The dark art of camshaft kung fu is delicate. I've heard of folks getting cam suggestions on forums or from car tech guys for the company, only to have suggested something which was bad for it. Building engines is insanely expensive if you dont know what you're doing or take bad advice.
 
Pulled the Valve Covers The white goo is only on the inside of the Valve Covers.(light coating) The rocker arms look clean and only VERY minor buildup around #3 cylinder valve spring. Pulled the distributor and the oil shaft will spin if I turn the engine over with the starter. Biggest Issue I can see is no oil pressure. drained oil and oil looks as clean as it came out of the bottle.Radiator fluid is only down about 4" from filler neck and coolant is clean and green. Not sure of where to proceed from here. Oil pump is a Melling High Volume pump and is about 3 yrs old. Motor probably has less than 30,000 since being bored .030 over. Engine has hydraulic lifters.
 
Condensation in your valve covers could be from braking in the cam...hot to cold(condensation overnight cooling)Could your oil guage be faulty?I say pop the dizzy back in and start it up,to see what reading you have.Good luck.
 
Defiantly loss of pressure. The engine lost almost all power before I shut it down and I could hear the top end was starved for oil. It was still running but I HAD to get it off the main drag. (no where to pull off the road) I am thinking of just pulling the engine and opening it up and seeing if and how much damages there may be. Just cannot understand why one minute it was running fine and the next... 0 psi?????
 
Keep the distributor removed. Remove the oil sending unit/oil guage line at the block and install an oil pressure gauge. Use a speed handle with a long extension to spin the oil shaft and see if you can get oil pressure. If no pressure then oil pump is probably bad. If you do get pressure then you may have some blockage somewhere in the system.

Oops, just saw that you did have a gauge installed on the dash.
 
dustermaniac said:
Pulled the Valve Covers The white goo is only on the inside of the Valve Covers.(light coating) The rocker arms look clean and only VERY minor buildup around #3 cylinder valve spring. Pulled the distributor and the oil shaft will spin if I turn the engine over with the starter. Biggest Issue I can see is no oil pressure. drained oil and oil looks as clean as it came out of the bottle.Radiator fluid is only down about 4" from filler neck and coolant is clean and green. Not sure of where to proceed from here
Click to expand...

Still don't know exactly what motor you have, is it a magnum? Hydraulic or solids?

4 inches is a lot.

I would do the normal trouble shooting procedure of starting at one problem, and working through it.

I would be most concerned about the oil pressure first.

Eliminate the gauge. Do you have another one? If not, take the fitting out of the hole, and turn it over with your starter. Oil should shoot out the hole. That can be messy so use a rag over it, or hook a line up to it and point the line to a rag or can.

It has been a long time so I have forgotten a few of these things.

But on my old race motor (383 with the bottom oiling first) I had this happen. #2 lifter popped out of the lifter bore, causing a loss of pressure to the top end and gauge, but I still had pressure to the bottom end.

It happened coming out of the water box, going to the final round. I had shut it down until I thought what it was, and fired back up to give him a chance to red light, and he did. :D
 
dustermaniac said:
Defiantly loss of pressure. The engine lost almost all power before I shut it down and I could hear the top end was starved for oil. It was still running but I HAD to get it off the main drag. (no where to pull off the road) I am thinking of just pulling the engine and opening it up and seeing if and how much damages there may be. Just cannot understand why one minute it was running fine and the next... 0 psi?????
Click to expand...

Ok. sorry, I misunderstood the sewing machine comment. I agree, get it out of there and find out what is wrong. Parts are just too expensive to take a chance.
 
Eliminate the gauge. Do you have another one? If not, take the fitting out of the hole, and turn it over with your starter. Oil should shoot out the hole. That can be messy so use a rag over it, or hook a line up to it and point the line to a rag or can.


Just removed the fitting for the gauge and cranked the engine over by crossing the starter relay. NO oil at all coming out of the hole.

How do you remove the oil shaft?

The shaft will turn when I crank the starter over and all of the valves are opening and closing as the motor turns over.
 
I hope you find out what it is. Sorry to hear this happened.
 
dustermaniac said:
Eliminate the gauge. Do you have another one? If not, take the fitting out of the hole, and turn it over with your starter. Oil should shoot out the hole. That can be messy so use a rag over it, or hook a line up to it and point the line to a rag or can.


Just removed the fitting for the gauge and cranked the engine over by crossing the starter relay. NO oil at all coming out of the hole.

How do you remove the oil shaft?

The shaft will turn when I crank the starter over and all of the valves are opening and closing as the motor turns over.
Click to expand...

I use a magnet tool, that has a handle on it. You may need to help it a little by backing it out with a long handled screw driver in the distributor slot. Sometimes they seat too hard for a magnet to pull them out of the seat without a little help.

Old Kimmer may be right, it would still turn at the top, but may be broken down at the pump. Did you put in a HV pump and use the old pump drive? I have always gotten by with it, but maybe you didn't.

Oh, and since we now know for sure you are running dry, I wouldn't be turning this motor over anymore than you have too until you get some oil back to those bearings.
 
dustermaniac said:
Pump is a Melling HV pump.
Click to expand...

I used to use those every time, but the last 4 motors, have gone back to a standard pump.

Especially a small block in my opinion, since the oil goes to the rear main first, unlike a big block.

No matter how hard I tried with HV pumps, I was always fighting getting them sealed up good. I hate leaks.

Also, it just makes sense that the HV pump is going to give the shaft more resistance to turn over. With thicker oils, it must be quite a bit. You can really feel it with a strong drill motor and your prime shaft, when it picks up the oil.
 
I actually had a pump break in half from installing the drive. I watched my dad install it, and he was not heavy handed with it. Just lightly tapped it in with the end of a small hammer while turning it with a flat head screwdriver. Fired up the car and low pressure. Took it apart to find it broke.

I agree with using a standard volume pump.
 
I just pulled the shaft. Here are some pics of it. I do not remember if the end that goes into the oil pump should look like the picture shows, but the shaft is straight and appears to be in good condition. You guys be the judge. Sorry about the cell phone quality. Digital camera is broke.
 

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Looks like the end that goes into the pump is broken off. The pictures are fuzzy, but there should be a couple inches (IIRC) of hex part that goes into the pump. Also, the little bit that it looks like you have left, looks twisted. It should be straight.

Old Kimmer comes through again! Probably the sharpest guy on this board IMO.
 
The oil pump shaft is broken it will still turn at the top cause its driven by the camshaft but at the bottom is where its not turning.
 
HemiEd said:
Looks like the end that goes into the pump is broken off. The pictures are fuzzy, but there should be a couple inches (IIRC) of hex part that goes into the pump. Also, the little bit that it looks like you have left, looks twisted. It should be straight.

Old Kimmer comes through again! Probably the sharpest guy on this board IMO.
Click to expand...

That's what I thought, the bottom of the shaft is supposed to be similar to a hex head bolt and have flat sides and not be grooved as this shaft is. I am going to order another pump and shaft (a hardened one if I can get one) and tear it open and see what transpires. I do not think I did any major damage to the engine. I shut it down pretty quickly.
 
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