Break In Disaster????????

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xLURKxDOGx said:
I pulled the valve cover and it sure looks like it has a lot of oilat the back corner. I turned it on and it was just pouring from the 4th bolt that holds the rocker arms on, it really doesn't look right to me. It is tightened to specs and the rockers are banana grooves with the drivers side notch down to the front of the engine and passenger side notch down to the back. Is it normal for that be be flooding oil from there? I understand that is how they oil but this seems excessive!!
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Not normal! I think your heads are on backwards.....Heehee.
Take that spacer off and have a real good look at it. I assume the bolt is correct and the spacers are correctly located. If so, and the spacer is good, then the shaft must be bad. This really should have been caught during the prelube......You are kinda lucky to have had to remove the cover.
I know how to turn on a motor and a lotta other things, but not how to turn on an engine! I assume you started it up?
 
Do you have the right washers on the rocker shaft hold down bolts? They should like this one, and are formed around the shaft. The 2nd and 4th washers are wider than the 1st, 3rd, and 5th. Perhaps the bolt or washer is not down right.

Did you perchance use cam bearings with full grooves? That will put a much higher level of pressure into the rocker shaft than normal.
 

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nm9stheham said:
Do you have the right washers on the rocker shaft hold down bolts? They should like this one, and are formed around the shaft. The 2nd and 4th washers are wider than the 1st, 3rd, and 5th. Perhaps the bolt or washer is not down right.

Did you perchance use cam bearings with full grooves? That will put a much higher level of pressure into the rocker shaft than normal.
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They are in the right orientation small/big/small/big/small. I just had the regular set of bearings and i dont recall them being full grooves.


Jake
 
AJ/FormS said:
Not normal! I think your heads are on backwards.....Heehee.
Take that spacer off and have a real good look at it. I assume the bolt is correct and the spacers are correctly located. If so, and the spacer is good, then the shaft must be bad. This really should have been caught during the prelube......You are kinda lucky to have had to remove the cover.
I know how to turn on a motor and a lotta other things, but not how to turn on an engine! I assume you started it up?
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It has been started and ran, i didnt notices anything unusual when prelubing it, but there was a lot other things i was being distracted with.


Jake
 
Well, if the cam bearings are normal so that the oiling interrupter function of the oiling-through-the-cam is working, then then next significant oil restriction and pressure reducer to the rocker shaft is the hole in the bottom of the rocker shaft at the #2 pedestal on the driver's side and #4 pedestal on the passenger side (where the oil feeds up from the heads). That hole should be .375" inside diameter and that, along with the 5/16" rocker bolt passing through that hole, is the main restriction into the rocker. If those holes are right, then you either have something wrong with that washer or the bolt is bent or the cam bearing is fully grooved.

If you can't ID something definite, then I'd prime the engine again and rotate the crank, and see if oil flows to that side in less than 60 degrees of crank rotation angle out of 720 degrees of crank rotation, or 2 full crank rotations. If so, then the cam bearings are normal ones.

BTW.... do you have an oil pressure gauge hooked up? Any monkeying around with the oil pump's pressure relief spring? Relief spring hold-in plug installed right? I'm just looking for any reason that your overall oil pressure could be abnormally high.
 
nm9stheham said:
Well, if the cam bearings are normal so that the oiling interrupter function of the oiling-through-the-cam is working, then then next significant oil restriction and pressure reducer to the rocker shaft is the hole in the bottom of the rocker shaft at the #2 pedestal on the driver's side and #4 pedestal on the passenger side (where the oil feeds up from the heads). That hole should be .375" inside diameter and that, along with the 5/16" rocker bolt passing through that hole, is the main restriction into the rocker. If those holes are right, then you either have something wrong with that washer or the bolt is bent or the cam bearing is fully grooved.

If you can't ID something definite, then I'd prime the engine again and rotate the crank, and see if oil flows to that side in less than 60 degrees of crank rotation angle out of 720 degrees of crank rotation, or 2 full crank rotations. If so, then the cam bearings are normal ones.

BTW.... do you have an oil pressure gauge hooked up? Any monkeying around with the oil pump's pressure relief spring? Relief spring hold-in plug installed right? I'm just looking for any reason that your overall oil pressure could be abnormally high.
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I am wondering now if somehow i do have the heads switched around, because it is leaking from the #4 on the drivers side and it should be the #2. For some reason i though they could go either way but i did write in sharpie drivers since i got them back from the shop.

I do have an oil gauge but i havent plumbed it yet. I never played around with the oil pump spring so that one is out. Its a stock oil pump, not high pressure.


Jake
 
Does not matter which side the heads are on..... oil goes through the rocker pedestals the same way. You can only block the oil hole from the head if you flip some gaskets over. Not the problem here at least on that side! The rockers will get mildly pressurized so a leak can come from anywhere along the shaft. BTW, are you sure it is around the #4 bolt head, or maybe its from the adjacent rocker around a worn shaft area or rocker?

Someone here reported getting a new oil pump with the relief spring plug installed backwards and he had something 150 psi at start up! Some of these things fall into the category of 'not good until actually proven good'. I'd get that oil pressure gauge on there pronto; just hook it up in the engine compartment as a check. I lost a bottom end in an unexpected way when I did not hook up a gauge; it ran 200 miles fine, but seized the crank on the first long uphill 2 minute run due to high oil pressure putting most of the oil in the head.
 
My goodness it must be coming out like a fire hose directly at the valve cover gasket?
 
I'm sorry about comment about the heads being on backwards. My wife says I have the worst sense of humor. I guess it really was a BAD joke.
So no the heads cannot be on backwards.It's impossible.
One thing nm9 may have missed is a cracked shaft at that hole, which is what I was thinking in a previous post. But it's far more likely to be the spacer or the bolt.
Also, just because the bolt reaches it's torque spec , does not automatically mean it's correctly installed.If the bolt is too long for instance, it could bottom in the hole,reach torque spec, but not be tight. Or if there's something in the bottom of the hole. or the bolt shoulder ends up in the wrong place,or if threads are bad,etc.
 
^^^ All that... (and the holes on the shaft as installed ARE point down, right? Just checkin'.....)
 
Do you have the rocker shafts on correctly? There is a right ans wrong way.

The notch in the end should be pointing down and to the rear on the passenger side and down and to the front on the driver's side.

OR if they do not have notches, just make sure the oiling holes point down and toward the springs and not toward the intake side. Simple enough.
 
j par said:
My goodness it must be coming out like a fire hose directly at the valve cover gasket?
Click to expand...
It is coming out there pretty fast and might be a bit exaggerated because of how tiny the crack is. I might try to get a video of it tonight after work.

AJ/FormS said:
I'm sorry about comment about the heads being on backwards. My wife says I have the worst sense of humor. I guess it really was a BAD joke.
So no the heads cannot be on backwards.It's impossible.
One thing nm9 may have missed is a cracked shaft at that hole, which is what I was thinking in a previous post. But it's far more likely to be the spacer or the bolt.
Also, just because the bolt reaches it's torque spec , does not automatically mean it's correctly installed.If the bolt is too long for instance, it could bottom in the hole,reach torque spec, but not be tight. Or if there's something in the bottom of the hole. or the bolt shoulder ends up in the wrong place,or if threads are bad,etc.
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It's ok, I figured it was a joke but then nm9stheham said the hikes should have been 4 on the passenger and 2 on the drivers which made me second guess all of that. I'll check and see if it is bottoming out, I can see it isn't seated right compared to the others but didn't want to squeeze the shaft out there. I do have the correct spacing or the spacers S/B/S/B/S.
nm9stheham said:
^^^ All that... (and the holes on the shaft as installed ARE point down, right? Just checkin'.....)
Click to expand...

RustyRatRod said:
Do you have the rocker shafts on correctly? There is a right ans wrong way.

The notch in the end should be pointing down and to the rear on the passenger side and down and to the front on the driver's side.

OR if they do not have notches, just make sure the oiling holes point down and toward the springs and not toward the intake side. Simple enough.
Click to expand...

The notches are correct, drivers down and to the front and passenger down and to the rear.

Thanks to everyone for their input, it's given me a lot of food for thought. Another question, could to much pressure cause a rear main seal failure, because I noticed some oil coming from the bottom of the transmission and it didn't appear to be trans fluid?

Jake
 
xLURKxDOGx said:
Another question, could to much pressure cause a rear main seal failure, because I noticed some oil coming from the bottom of the transmission and it didn't appear to be trans fluid?

Jake
Click to expand...

no it nothing to do with a seal failure .
 
I would try sticking a proper size grade 8 washer between that bolt, and the spacer.
Cheap and easy to try.
 
sireland67 said:
I would try sticking a proper size grade 8 washer between that bolt, and the spacer.
Cheap and easy to try.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll try that and possibly run a tap to see if it's bottomed out.

Jake
 
xLURKxDOGx said:
Another question, could to much pressure cause a rear main seal failure, because I noticed some oil coming from the bottom of the transmission and it didn't appear to be trans fluid?
Click to expand...
High oil pressure would pump a lot of excess oil to the rear main bearing (as well as everywhere else) so might flood the seal. Just put that gauge on there temporarily and take a reading and no guessing anymore.
 
AJ/FormS said:
I'm sorry about comment about the heads being on backwards. My wife says I have the worst sense of humor. I guess it really was a BAD joke.
So no the heads cannot be on backwards.It's impossible.
One thing nm9 may have missed is a cracked shaft at that hole, which is what I was thinking in a previous post. But it's far more likely to be the spacer or the bolt.
Also, just because the bolt reaches it's torque spec , does not automatically mean it's correctly installed.If the bolt is too long for instance, it could bottom in the hole,reach torque spec, but not be tight. Or if there's something in the bottom of the hole. or the bolt shoulder ends up in the wrong place,or if threads are bad,etc.
Click to expand...

nm9stheham said:
^^^ All that... (and the holes on the shaft as installed ARE point down, right? Just checkin'.....)
Click to expand...

I plumbed the oil gauge and it is reading 70 steady pounds, this is on a warm engine. I feel like thats really high????


Jake
 
70@idle would be unusually, and unnecessarily, high. I assembled a 340 engine about 2 years ago, that seemed to have excessive oil pressure like that.I told my employer lets get a second opinion; a second gauge. Well he insisted his gauge was accurate. Well he had me running around in circles for several hours, and he himself spent more hours on it. Turns out, his gauge was NOT so accurate after all. I quit shortly afterwards when we butted heads on another project.
I'm not saying I'm the smartest old-guy alive; Just that a second opinion was a no-brainer.
I'm also not saying your gauge is a lying, just that 70@idle begs a second opinion,cuz I don't think it happens for real all that often, in an engine built with street specs..
 
I aslo just ran a tap through it and re-tightened it to spec and it isnt spewing from there, that is one issue down. Thoughts on high pressure????


Jake
 
AJ/FormS said:
70@idle would be unusually, and unnecessarily, high. I assembled a 340 engine about 2 years ago, that seemed to have excessive oil pressure like that.I told my employer lets get a second opinion; a second gauge. Well he insisted his gauge was accurate. Well he had me running around in circles for several hours, and he himself spent more hours on it. Turns out, his gauge was NOT so accurate after all. I quit shortly afterwards when we butted heads on another project.
I'm not saying I'm the smartest old-guy alive; Just that a second opinion was a no-brainer.
I'm also not saying your gauge is a lying, just that 70@idle begs a second opinion,cuz I don't think it happens for real all that often, in an engine built with street specs..
Click to expand...

Ok, its a brand new sun gauge but i guess theyre what they used to be or so i am told. Is there a more accurate way to tell or do i need to buy another one to test???

Jake
 
Some more info please: What weight of oil? And how warm is warm? What RPM's? What oil pump; standard or high volume or high pressure?

Did you put in a Melling oil pump? Per KrazyKuda, they use a 72 psi relief spring. We primed our 340 last week, with 10W30 oil and a Melling HV oil pump with the heavier spring in it (presumably the 72 psi spring). At 600 rpm on the pump (equivalent to 1200 crank RPM), it produced 67 psi with room temp 10W30 oil on a 60's Stewart Warner gauge.

Dunno any other way to test the actual pressure than a gauge. Run up your RPM's and if it does not gain more pressure, then that is likely where your relief spring is set. If it keeps going up with RPM in the to 80+ psi range or higher, then it is time to think about a relief spring issue.... or a bad gauge.

And good deal on the rocker shaft bolt!
 
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