Oiling system - need expertise

[BrandOmatic]

My truck\'s been down for a few months now. Lack of motivation until spring. What happened was a valve stuck open, bent 1 pushrod very bad, and the other valve must have stuck a little too because that pushrod bent some. Also ruined both rocker arms (the self aligning \"washers\" on both sides of the roller got chewed up.)



so, why did this happen? Nobody\'s sure, but what i keep hearing is \"is it getting oil to the top end??\"



The other kicker here is that two other rocker arms have had bearing failure. The half sphere bearings have chunks breaking off them. On one i found all the chunks laying right at the base of the valve spring. the other i did not find any chunks? =( hopefully the filter catches them.



Anyway, i told my engine machinist/builder and showed him the messed up half sphere bearings. he said he\'d never seen that before. why are they failing? again, probably no oil to the top end. They are comp magnum roller tipped rockers, so they\'re not cheap junk.



If oil isn\'t getting up there, what\'s stopping it?



I ordered a block \"ready to go\" from a shop down in tucson arizona, motor machine and supply. The block was supposed to be boiled i thought, but it had old paint on it when i got it... They also installed cam bearings and freeze plugs for me. Also oil gallery plugs i think?? Also they did something with the oiling system... I don\'t remember what. Either enlarged the oil gallery return holes, or something. I was thinking maybe they blocked them off so the block was set up for roller rockers only???



Maybe the oil passages are plugged? But why in the hell would a professional place sell me a block i asked to be \"ready to go\" w/o hot tanking or cleaning it somehow? I could not hot tank it after i got it because freeze plugs and cam bearings were already installed.



Also i hope the cam bearings are installed right? And someone mentioned maybe a spun main bearing?



....after typing all this i remember it was making a bad sort of knock.. running on 7 cylinders and both valves closed before i took off that valve cover to see what had happened. Up until right now i thought the sound had to do with the bent pushrods and stuff.



huh, i bet it spun a bearing. fantastic. I hope you guys read this, i know it\'s alot but i really would love some opinions...

[Scotty_S-15]

Yeah, you\'ve got no luck either. Regarding the valves and head, did you ever check to see if you were getting oil up there? And yeah, a passage could have been blocked. all the passages should be \"rodded\" out when the block is being prepped.

........ If you weren\'t getting oil up there, you aren\'t the first guy to have that problem. A while back, a buddy built a Chevy \"W\" engine, a 348/409 hybrid. Anyway, he had no oil to one head. He was so pizzed off, he was ready to haul it to the junkyard rather than pull the engine out & apart. So I offered to fix it quick & dirty, but we would have to take a chance.

....... Luckily it worked. What I did was to pull the intake, and drill down into the lifter gallery for each bank, tap it for 1/8\" pipe, and run a copper tube to connect the two galleries. What was scary was wondering if we got all the metal filings from the drill & tapping out of the galleries.... http://www.s10v8.com/images/smilies/icon_confused.gif

......... But don\'t despair, your bottom end might all be fine. If fact, I guess you could still check to see if you\'re getting oil to the head by pulling the plugs and cranking the engine over. Just pull the messed up rockers. Don\'t overdo the cranking if you\'ve got a mini-gear drive starter, they can overheat if you crank \'em too long.

[BrandOmatic]

alright well thanks for the reply. I never did check. Only went about 50 miles or less. But lesson learned, i\'ll check that for sure next time.

What about the knock though? i\'m remembering it was pretty bad, and for some reason i got a feeling it is a bottom end knock. It would not start knocking until 1500 rpm or so however... But still, it badly reminds me of my friends 3.8 mustang when it spun a bearing.. sort of different though. His was on and off at all engine speeds. Mine\'s constant above about 1500.



I think i\'m going to take it all apart just to make sure.



Regarding checking for oil to the top end.. I have one of those tools for turning the oil pump to prime the oil system, made out of an old distributor. Would that tell me? or do things have to be rotating for it to work?

[MARKYMARK]

could have been spark knock from engine heating up from no oil cooling off the bearings

[mzoomora]

The oil gets to the top of the motor through the pushrods from the lifter to the rocker arm. If you werent getting oil to the top, you could have easily wiped your cam also. One easy thging to forget is the pressed in oil galley plug that goes under the oil pump. If you had oil pressure at the gauge, you should have been getting oil to the top, at least some. It would be hard to block all 16 lifters and pushrods. A spun rear main bearing will easily kill your oil pressure. A spun cam bearing could have also blocked one of the oil passages. Unfortunatly it is a lot of places to look, but I would check all the bearings, try to prime it up and see if you get oil to the top, hook up a mechanical gauge to see what it says, then go from there.

[Scotty_S-15]

Brando, was all the damage just in one head? Or some in each? Mzoomora\'s note made me realize I was assuming that the trouble was just with one head, I\'m thinking I knew that from an earlier post on this problem??

..... So, just one head, or both?

[BrandOmatic]

On 2004-12-16 21:37, mzoomora wrote:

One easy thing to forget is the pressed in oil galley plug that goes under the oil pump.





uh oh, what is that? I don\'t remember that in the rebuild book.



Both sides. 2 bent pushrods on #5, and 1 ruined rocker bearing on the same bank. And 1 ruined rocker bearing on #8 i think it was.

[BrandOmatic]

Just a note, the oil pressure has been perfect through this entire motor\'s few hour life so far. The only time my gauge read 0 while running was when the line to the gauge broke. But it always ran 20-30 somewhere in there at idle i think. The pump is a high volume, high pressure, BUT we put the stock pressure spring back in it because 70pounds of pressure would be ridiculous.

[tracker]

i had this problem on one of my engines. it turned out that the rear most cam bearing was installed wrong and no oil was going to the lifters. if it dont go there it wont pump up the lifters and wont allow the oil to go to the rockers. the bottom end was oiling fine but no top end. check that cam bearing to ensure that all holes line up to an oil galley.

[tracker]

Regarding checking for oil to the top end.. I have one of those tools for turning the oil pump to prime the oil system, made out of an old distributor. Would that tell me? or do things have to be rotating for it to work?





oil psi goes around the grove in the distrib shaft housing.

with the priming tool in place and a drill turning it in the correct direction(you must have the shaft housing in there too) you can see oil travel through the lifter valley. oil will ooooooozzz out around the lifters. without the distributor base in there you would see a stream of oil shoot out in the distrib hole. if the cam bearing is in there wrong, no oil will go that route.