A 69 Dart came in yesterday for the distributor curve to be change. He had installed a new Cam and intake. While taking the car for a ride I saw the oil light come on when I left off the throttle. Then on the way back to the shop. The light kept coming on at an idle. Left it cool and restarted it , no pressure at all. The owner was along and he asked me how high I took the motor up in RPM's, I said 4500. I looked under the car and by chance I saw the oil filter adapter leaking. My thought was the gaskets were not in right. I took the filter off to check the adapter and it was totally clogged with what looked at first like grease at first. Then I saw it was fiber. I asked him if he could have left a rag in the motor, he said no way he didn't think so And if he did this would have happened before he brought it here. I pulled the oil plug The oil would not come out? Something was in there? I dropped the pan and I could not believe my eyes, there was pieces of rags and shreads of string everywhere. I looked up and the rag was wrapped around the cam. I took the intake off and it was wrapped so tight around the dist. I had to pry it out. There was rag material wrapped so tight around the cam and distributor it was unbelievable. He left a T-shirt and shop towels in the motor he had in there to prevent dirt from getting in the motor when he was scraping the intake gasket.Now he wasn't saying much. So we cleaned it all out and I cut out the pick-up He put on the pump and I suggested dropping a rod cap, it took out the rod bearings. but the crank looked OK. He made the decission to just put rod bearings back in and run it. I removed the oil filter adapter he installed and found the leak. He never took the round piece of metal out for the use without the adapter. He just bolted it right on over it.(pic of it below) This was the second adapter he came back for telling me he couldn,t get the first one to seal it was warped. I saw some things happen to peoples car's before but never something like this. Self inflicted. I am glad he stayed with the car an saw it for himself. If I would have had him leave it here after driving it over 20 miles to get here. He would have blamed me for ruining his motor. When he pulled in it sounded Good. When it dropped pressure on the ride after me twisting on it alittle he sort of looked at me like what did I do. and I thought we would be responsible. Now, I'm helping him fix it so his wife don't get mad. And he don't have alot of money to spend at this time. What a disaster. Another day , another lesson. I am so glad he stayed with the car. And I will never drive another persons car on its maiden voyage again. His mistake's could have been pushed onto me. If I didn't know him I would have told him to drop the car off. My son usually works on them in the evening. I guess its going to be sold. Its solid and there is alot of parts with it. I'm debating.
