[Va68goat]

I've been dealing with a motor that was built for me and it failed on the dyno. Here's what happened. When the motor was built, the builder did not secure the oil pickup tube and it fell into the oil pan. It was explained to me that this created a "Vortex" and starved the motor of oil. The chankshaft had to be replaced, bearings and two rods.

My question is this...With this kind of failure on the dyno that caused this kind of damage, is it possible that the distributor bushing and polymer gear could have been damaged? What other damage would you expect to see? You may have seen my other thread but I'd like to get answers to this particular question without distractions. Feel free to PM me your thoughts. I wont share any thoughts..I'm just looking for help. I'm new to cars and any help would be appreciated.

[tom s]

There is really no way to tell what happened,just that it did.I had a pickup fall off a engine and did not know it for a couple years when I pulled the pan.I just noticed that when I stopped hard the oil pressure would drop.No idea of when it actually came off just that I found it in the pan.60 lb pump,stock 69 pan,because of what I saw on the gauge I always ran a Xtra qt of oil.The bearing were perfect when checked but I really never drove it over 3K on the street.For all the years I had been doing this I never welded the pickup.One reason is I cant weld!FWIW,Tom

[Va68goat]

tom s,

Damn..thats crazy. I wish I had your luck. Based off of other dyno's I've seen of my motor, seems like it's brought up to around 6,200 somewhat quickly. I can't say mine was brought up to 6,200 when it failed but it was run long enough to have to have the crankshaft, bearings and 2 rods replaced. Thanks for sharing the info!

[tom s]

They usually dont get full power pulls right away,none I have done.We fire them up,if flat tappet cam get it broken in while looking for a leaks and watching all the gauges.After we are sure everything looks and sounds go we make a power pull,Joe very rarely went over 6K.We would then make a few pulls with diff timing and maybe a carb change.Dont get me wrong we have had failures on the dyno but never a blow up.You usually see something wrong way before they blow.Had a bad machine on a rear main and it started to seize.Shut it down and fixed it.Another was not enough side clearance on rods,again,started to seize,you see the loss in power pretty damn fast.Both issues were with a builder that used a out side machine shop and some clearance issues were missed.One from a back east engine builder and one was local.Since then I always try to have a builder that has his own machine shop.Have a 428 RA V engine being built now.Tom

[tom s]

And we did have to cut the crank,replace all bearings,on the side clearance we had to replace all the rods.Engines are put together by humans and things sometimes get missed,I usually build a engine every 2-3 years,in the close to 60 years I only remember 3 of those issues.If not on the dyno they would have truly blown up instead of what you just had to do.Yours did NOT blow up,blow up is a rod stuck through the block,break a crank and cam etc.THAT is a blow up.Yours just need a bandaid.Tom

[ponyakr]

I don't consider myself an engine builder, by any stretch of the imagination.

But, I've torn down quite a few, and assembled a dozen or so, for my race cars, thru the years. Have never seen one pickup screen come out of a pump, either factory or aftermarket.

I always used a Melling pump & screen. Never welded one. In fact, I found them so hard to install, I'd put the screen in the freezer, to reduce it's diameter slightly, & heat up the hole in the pump slightly, and still had to drive it in with a hammer.

They were so tight, I could see no way they could ever just fall out. But, lots of people have reported that they've seen it happen. So, I don't know what changed, if anything. Maybe I was just lucky.

[Va68goat]

Yeah...my terminolgy may not be correct regarding the "blew up on the dyno". This is all new to me. I'm just trying to get answers regarding the distributor bushing because I have been researching MSD distributor bushings going bad and I haven't seen one thing written about it. From what guys are telling me, it's more likely that it was caused by something rather than a part failure. I haven't spoken to anyone that has ever heard of a distributor bushing failing with less than 250 miles on it unless it was caused by something else.

[Rocky Rotella]

I’m not certain that a momentary loss of oil pressure on the dyno (because if it’s on a dyno and the operator sees oil pressure issues, he likely shuts it down right away) is enough to damage the bearings in a distributor. The bearings and crank journal surfaces, yes, but I just don’t think it’ll ruin a distributor that quick.

We have to consider that the lower bushing receives splash lubrication (not positive oiled) and the bronze (or bronze lined) bushing can wear and/or score the shaft over time but complete failure isn’t all that common. The upper bushing in an MSD distributor is a sealed roller bearing, but GM points type and HEI distributors are lubed by a grease well under at the top of the housing and it didn’t require regular maintenance. Hell, manufactures of aftermarket HEIs don’t even provide lubricant in the upper grease well! Although I wouldn’t trust it, they continually run tends of thousands of miles without issue!

[mgarblik]

Originally Posted by ponyakr

I don't consider myself an engine builder, by any stretch of the imagination.

But, I've torn down quite a few, and assembled a dozen or so, for my race cars, thru the years. Have never seen one pickup screen come out of a pump, either factory or aftermarket.

I always used a Melling pump & screen. Never welded one. In fact, I found them so hard to install, I'd put the screen in the freezer, to reduce it's diameter slightly, & heat up the hole in the pump slightly, and still had to drive it in with a hammer.

They were so tight, I could see no way they could ever just fall out. But, lots of people have reported that they've seen it happen. So, I don't know what changed, if anything. Maybe I was just lucky.

Agree it's rare to see a pick-up fall out of an oil pump. When I worked at the Pontiac dealer, I had 5-6 Pontiac and Oldsmobile oil pans off cars every week. 95% of them were removed for oil leaks. I remember in three years finding 1 pick-up laying in an oil pan. That engine was in for an oil leak, not an engine failure. As I recall we put a new oil pump and pick-up on it, pan gasket, rear main seal and shipped it.

[lust4speed]

Another way to look at it is distributors are splash oiled, and if the pump was sucking air there was more oil in the pan. More oil in the pan gives more splash oiling. Distributor might have been the healthiest part of the engine.

I've found three pickups in the bottom of the pan over the years, so it does happen. The bearings in these engines showed very little wear and were nowhere near a failure point. Even with a vortex being present the pump is still sucking and pushing oil. Every dyno operator I've seen has one eye on the oil pressure and the other on the remainder of the gauges. Loosing a crank from galling on a dyno would be hard to do, and I question having to replace two rods also. Even a "Damn the Torpedo's" approach would be hard pressed to require a new crank and some rods. Since the dyno operator wasn't the builder, I don't see any reason to protect the guilty, but this is still strange. Think something else was going on like egg shaped journals or a bent crank that wasn't caught during assembly.

Any photos?

[77 TRASHCAN]

Tom, did you find someone to dyno this new engine?

[steve25]

If the motor did not have a deeper then stock pan then the pump is fully submerged in oil so even if the pick up tube falls out your not going to see the oil pressure drop much if any!

[Cliff R]

Correct Steve, basically you just loose the screen to filter out the big chunks.

Far as oil pick up tubes falling out, OEM never budge.

The ones they've been sending with these pumps for at least the last 30 years are "soft" and don't have the memory like OEM. Rest assured if you do NOT take measures to retain them in the pump they absolutely will end up in the bottom of the oil pan, and may even get sucked up into the spinning assembly.

Take the extra time to effectively secure the pick-up to the pump. I don't recommend welding them as I've seen a few break loose and take a big chunk of the pump with them, but at a minimum make a strap to go back to one of the pump cover bolts, or drill and tap them for a hardened screw.....Cliff

[Va68goat]

Rocky Rotella,

The distributor has a polymer bushing. I don't know if that makes a difference or not. The distributor and bushing had less than 250 miles on it after the dyno and never driven hard due to the knocking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QOwVaJcQ_Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soh91OYexBM

mgarblik,
From what I was told, an oil pickup tube falling off was a problem that happened from time to time and guys found ways to stop that from happening. I just have no experience at all!

lust4speed,
As for the dyno operator, I don't know if they were paying attention or not. I wasn't there for the dyno pull. When I got the dyno sheet and showed it to guys who have experience with dyno's asked to see the tuning dyno sheet that shows more information than the one I got. In matter of fact, once it got dyno'd again, the date of the dyno was wrong, you could barely see the numbers because and it just looked odd..unlike the original once I received. I know the dyno operator ran the motor long enough (In front of the builder) that the builder said he had to replace the crankshaft, 2 rods and the bearings. That makes some experienced guys believe that it was run hard enough to damage the distributor bushing.

steve25,
The motor has a stock oil pan.

Cliff R,
Great points. The builder here chose to weld the pickup tube after the failure. A lot of guys mentioned that they prefer to make a strap as well.

[tom s]

yes,found two of them pretty much across the street from Sean at SMI.Think im going with Van Dyne Engineering.Tom

[prostreet64]

Agree with ponyakr that the pickup tube is so hard to install that it seems impossible that one would fall out but I know it happens. Therefore when we did the first rebuild on the Bird's 400 back in 2001 I was looking for a way to add some measure of security to this potential problem, and I decided to put a bead of JB Weld around the joint. When we last had the motor apart in 2011, some 10 years after the JB Weld was used it looked the same as when it was applied except for a darker color.

[John Milner]

I have always used some red Loctite on the end of the tube that presses into the oil pump. I have not had one come loose so far. I'm sure there are much better ways to help keep the tube on the pump.

I highly doubt anything would have happened to the distributor when the bearings spun. To me, a blown engine is a rod snapped or sticking through the block. I would consider a spun bearing pretty minor and easy to fix when comparing to a blown engine.

[Sun Tuned]

I have a msd distributor at the shop that was in a engine, Pontiac 455, that ran approx 120 miles that ate the bottom bushing.

Engine came back out and had numerous other issues, rear seal oil leak, insufficient valve seal to retainer clearance.

Absolutely do not discount the fact that in 100-150 miles if the bushing went away, due to an inferior material that what used to comprise that bushing went where????

You got it, hopefully through the oil filter and stuck but in this case it may have been the grenade that started other debris on its own.

I've seen it.

[Sirrotica]

As Mike Garblik has alluded to, Pontiacs are not the only engine that press fit oil pickup tubes fall off of. I've taken pans off of numerous brands engines, and seen the oil pickup laying in the pan. I've seen plenty of buick engines with the oil screen so plugged that the spring loaded safety trap door in the oil pump pickup is the only place that oil was getting to the oil pump. The pans were usually pulled for an oil leak, not a bearing issue, oil leak fixed, clean the oil screen, or replace it, and down the road it went.

If it's a daily driver it usually has little, if any effect on the engine as long as the oil level is maintained. For race engines it can be a death sentence when the oil moves enough during braking, or cornering, to suck air into the oil system, especially at high RPM. Each incident has a lot of variables that can destroy and engine in a few seconds as opposed to the daily driver that may last a long time with oil pickup defects.

I've never used any MSD products, but from reading about them a good company that had little bad press has been sold to a conglomerate, and price and profit being the guiding motivator, it seems quality has been moved from the front to the back. Too bad a piece that cost less than $1 allegedly has caused all this misery and money. If plastic (polymer) has been substituted for an oilite bushing, someone has dropped the ball at MSD.

Obviously with a second defective MSD distributor now showing up also in a Pontiac there is a problem. The distributor was sent back to MSD for repair under warranty, did MSD just put another polymer bushing in and call it good? Is it already failing if it's the same material?

I would be very concerned as the owner of the engine if MSD hasn't done an update to the material the lower bushing is made from.

[Rocky Rotella]

Originally Posted by Va68goat

Rocky Rotella,

The distributor has a polymer bushing. I don't know if that makes a difference or not. The distributor and bushing had less than 250 miles on it after the dyno and never driven hard due to the knocking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QOwVaJcQ_Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soh91OYexBM

I just watched those videos and that lower bushing is TOAST!

But are you certain that MSD is installing polymer bushings on the lower end of its distributors? I'd have to believe it was a metallic material, but I could certainly be wrong as polymers are showing up in places on cars I would have never dreamed of seeing it.

Regardless, in my opinion that type of failure in 250 miles indicates that MSD had a bushing that wasn't constructed properly. And if Sun Tuned is reporting a similar failure in half the miles, then that may tell us that there was a run (large or small, only MSD would know) of distributors with that same faulty bushing.

I also agree with Sun Tuned in that the material from that bushing had to go somewhere. We'd hope the oil filter collected most (or all) of it, but I'd bet not. The fact that your polymer driven gear on the distributor (as noted in your original post) was damaged may be indication of that. You didn't describe the type of "damage" that occurred or to what extent, but between the fact that it was walking all over the drive gear on the camshaft and the minute "grit" acting as fine abrasive in the oil that lubricates it, damage is unsurprising.