[glhs#116]

Originally Posted by johnta1

He wrote this:




Have you checked to see if the hoist will roll under the car with the jack stands where they are?

Er... No. Not as such. But since the car is facing a wall I was planning on taking the engine out over the fender. So I figured I should be able to get a leg either side of the hub/jack. Bad plan?

Sam

[STEELCITYFIREBIRD]

The tire usually need to come off to have room to maneuver the hoist. Mine tightens up on the tire unless I have the boom all the way out...then it wants to tip forward.

[steve25]

I have never had to take more then .001" off the pump body face and it takes all of 5 minutes of figure 8 dancing if that!

How the hell one would use a large file and remove material evenly is beyond me?

[Blued and Painted]

I know.
Sand paper will roll the edges. You can final up with 320 if you like.
Most work benches are not built with a +- 002 flat.
A thermostat housing is a different story with a thick gasket.

[glhs#116]

So... Oil pump seems OK. Drive shaft was starting to spread the ears a little but nothing outrageous. I'm not sure I like the look of the drive gear on the camshaft though...




By the way, is that scuffing at the bottom of the bores normal. Seems to be there for every hole.

Sam

[chiphead]

Looks like the gear on the cam is lunched.

What was the oil pressure normally before failure?
What did the driven gear on the distributor look like?

[STEELCITYFIREBIRD]

Pump is either driven or not, the gear wear is not the source of oil pressure problem. Keep digging.

[lust4speed]

Cam lobes are gone. Check the bottom of a couple of lifters and I will bet you find them concave instead of convex - and the gear teeth on the cam do look really worn as well. This wear was over time and not part of any recent catastrophic failure, and you will have something else still causing the oil pressure loss.

[dataway]

How many miles on the engine ... cam looks typical of a high mileage engine, like 70,000+ miles. I pulled the original cam out of my GTO at about 95,000 miles. Lobes looked like that, one lifter worn so concave it had a pin hole in the bottom.

[glhs#116]

So... Looks like I'm ordering bearings after all...






Sam

[glhs#116]

So, I'm fairly bummed. Oil pump looks OK. I guess a piece of grit or something could have propped open the check ball or something. It would be hard to tell since the ball and spring shot out when I opened it. I was looking at that gear and I thought it looked worn but maybe in a high mileage kinda way. Looking at the bearing shells it looks like something went through somehow at some point. I see scoring and some little embedded bits. Not quite sure how or when. Maybe even just the pan getting bashed dislodged some stuff at the bottom and sucked it through. But my filter isn't that old...

Looking at that number 2 main bearing I'm still not sure what to think. It could be from something going through. But also, I know for a fact that this Eagle crank will just have been dropped in and cranked down. And maybe the torque they used was wrong or the clearances a little tight?

Cam and lifters are original as far as I know. What is making everyone think it is worn down? It runs and drives fine. I haven't had any clear symptoms of that like a set of rockers that moves less than the others or what have you. I have the Melling 54F pump since it is listed as correct for 455HO. Would the 54DS be a smart move, though, thinking of the cam gear?

Since the engine is out I'm not sure where to look for root cause. If I had an oil galley plug out it should be clear at this point, no? And there is no slop in the crank or rods so I can't think I could lose pressure at the bearings. Apart from a stuck checkball (or a problem with the sending unit for the oil pressure combined with me imagining the lifter clatter) I'm not sure where to check next.

Sam

[dataway]

And original cam, with quite a few miles on it, that looks like that .... in my case the engine still ran fine, and ran like a bear ... despite the lobes and lifters being pretty severely worn. They had a very similar pattern as your lobes. I was totally surprised when I saw the lifters and lobes that the engine seemed to run so well that way. And probably would have run quite a while longer .... well, except for the lifter with the hole in it.

You'll get plenty of feedback on those bearings ... obviously, the one with the copper showing ... something was going on there.

I feel for you brother .... once you start digging in ... it ends up being a while to dig out.

[glhs#116]

So. I've got to put together an order. That's how it works out here in the middle of nowhere. I've already got main and cam bearings on the list. It sounds like cam and lifters should be on that list also? And then I can't find anyone selling an iron Pontiac HEI distributor gear. All I see are bronze gears and a .500 iron gear. Looks like there's a new "mellanised" finish that works with everything but only available in Chevy flavour?

What story do you think those bearings are telling? I've only cracked open 1 and 2 main so far. If it was your motor where would you be looking? Times like this I wish I actually had any reliable machine shops or anything nearby.

Also, when I crack rear main I'm going to lose the seal I guess. How much voodoo and pain in the ass is it making that rear seal with the "rope" stuff Fel-Pro give you?

Sam

[tom s]

I think I have a Xtra stock gear if you need one.Tom

[glhs#116]

Originally Posted by dataway

You'll get plenty of feedback on those bearings ... obviously, the one with the copper showing ... something was going on there.

So... A little history. About six or seven years ago I was driving along one morning and then BANG and then no engine. I was leaving for England the next day so just managed to get the car towed to a garage where the owner is a friend of a work friend. It's an Indian workshop and things are done with very basic tools and it's a very humble workshop.

When I got back the news was that the crank had snapped between 4 cap and rear main. Everything else was fine and I was told to just get a new crank and bearings and it would be fine.

I spent a long time getting a builder on these boards to get me a quote on a decent rebuilt engine since I doubted having these guys do the crank swap would be a success. Long story short, it took a really long time to get a quote from the builder and then when I did it was well out of what I could afford.

So eventually, I ordered a set of bearings and a new Eagle crank (and ARP bolts) and they did the swap and it's been running ever since. But I always wondered what was "lurking", so to speak. I mean, I guarantee that what happened was that the bearings were dropped in along with the crank and no measurements were made or anything. As far as torque values again I'm not sure what they followed. So if any of that sheds light on this shiny copper bearing that's the background. The crank could be too tight, the torque values could be wrong. I was hoping one of the things I could do now is actually at least torque stuff down properly. As far as anything like machining the crank I'm not sure there's anywhere here I would trust.

Sam

[STEELCITYFIREBIRD]

Sam, if your not confident in installing a rear main seal, you probably should not be in there. I feel your going to be digging in much deeper than that. I hope not, but from what I see it looks like this engine is due for a major overhaul.
Did you purchase a full gasket set?

[dataway]

I no expert by far ... but I did spend the last several years on this forum And my guess is someone is going to tell you that after you snap a crankshaft ... it probably should have be align-bored. If just one side of that bearing was showing copper ... I'd think either that shell was wrong in some way ... or there was a lot of crankshaft journal pressure on that one side of the bearing and not the other ... and if it's the cap side shell ... then that cap was tweaked when the crank went ... or something to that effect.

The next few posts will tell me if I have learned anything on this forum

Actually ... I have learned something, if I don't know for sure, just be quiet and wait for someone that does.

[johnta1]

That bearing with copper showing is from lack of oil.
(#2?)

Surprised the #1 looks as good as it does.



More than likely the crank will need reground.
So if you ordered bearings, how do you know what size to get?
(unless you're getting another crank with bearings)



Good time to learn how to rebuild your engine.

[tom s]

I think the 455 HO used the 60 lb pump,the 455 SDs used the 80 lb and also used the larger dist gear.Tom

[gtospieg]

glhs...BOP engineering sells the proper gear for your dist.