[chiphead]

Hi,

I've just bought a new to me 67 LeMans project car. It's got a late 60s WZ code 400 with a huge rowdy cam. Upper valvetrain looks stock, bolt-in oil drippers, stock rocker arms, spring shields, etc. Very clean up top, no sludge.

Engine runs really well, great oil pressure, no strange noises. I changed the oil for the first time and cut the oil filter open. The oil was black, contaminated with carbon and some fuel. There wasn't any hunks or slivers in the filter pleats. But the oil itself was full of microscopic metal. It all sticks to a magnet, and looks like microscopic arrowheads. What could it be? Pontiac DNA? I have no idea of the engine's history or what's inside it, other than it had a history of carb issues. All I know is it runs like a beast. All 8 cylinders are dead nuts at 150 PSI on a compression test.

Should I run some cheap oil through it for a few minutes to see if it clears, or do I need to dig deeper?

[hurryinhoosier62]

Originally Posted by chiphead

Hi,

I've just bought a new to me 67 LeMans project car. It's got a late 60s WZ code 400 with a huge rowdy cam. Upper valvetrain looks stock, bolt-in oil drippers, stock rocker arms, spring shields, etc. Very clean up top, no sludge.

Engine runs really well, great oil pressure, no strange noises. I changed the oil for the first time and cut the oil filter open. The oil was black, contaminated with carbon and some fuel. There wasn't any hunks or slivers in the filter pleats. But the oil itself was full of microscopic metal. It all sticks to a magnet, and looks like microscopic arrowheads. What could it be? Pontiac DNA? I have no idea of the engine's history or what's inside it, other than it had a history of carb issues. All I know is it runs like a beast. All 8 cylinders are dead nuts at 150 PSI on a compression test.

Should I run some cheap oil through it for a few minutes to see if it clears, or do I need to dig deeper?

How much metal? If it’s more than just a trace something is going wrong internally.

[chuckies76ta]

I would leave it alone and run it. I would also do like you mentioned. Change the oil, put a good oil filter on it and run it up to temp for like 10-15 minutes and then change it. Cut the filter open again and check it. Then install the oil your gonna run, new oil filter and see where it goes. Check the distributor gear for any wear. Could be timing chain /gear wear. You could remove one valve cover at a time after warmed up and check the rockers and basically lift from the cam. I'd be curious on what oil filter it came with, when you bought it. ? Just a novice here.

[chiphead]

Originally Posted by hurryinhoosier62

How much metal? If it’s more than just a trace something is going wrong internally.

Too much metal. When you stick a magnet through the oil, the slivers come swimming up like a school of tiny minnows in the sea.

I didn't consider dizzy gear wear. It's got a Mallory Unilite distributor. My initial thought is a cam lobe, but want to get the group's opinions. It had a WIX filter and supposedly had Brad Penn 10W30. The oil was bluish-black, weird and slippery.

[F ROCK]

I think camshaft in the oil looks like black dust.
When I had metal in my oil; I flushed the engine with kerosene, spun the oil pump etc. But I already had the top open for a cam swap.

You could run it up to temp w/ cheap oil and change it out a few times, along with the filter.
You could put a powerful magnet on the bottom of the oil pan then remove it before you drain the oil. I've had an old Jensen speaker magnet on mine forever.
You could add a bypass filter to catch the really fine stuff that gets past your regular filter.

[25stevem]

The problem is that until the oil get hot enough to thin out the bypass is open and pumping any crap that's in the oil through out the whole motor which is not a good thing!
I would pull the Dizzy to look at the gear and if that checks I would pull the Intake and the valley pan to peek in there.

If it all looks good then drain the oil, flush out the pan with a gallon of WD-40 and put it back together and run it for 5,minutes and then cut the filter open again.
If there's a dramatic change in the crap in the oil then put yet another new filter on. It , run it for 25 minutes and then cut it open again.

[Dragncar]

Originally Posted by F ROCK

I think camshaft in the oil looks like black dust.
When I had metal in my oil; I flushed the engine with kerosene, spun the oil pump etc. But I already had the top open for a cam swap.

You could run it up to temp w/ cheap oil and change it out a few times, along with the filter.
You could put a powerful magnet on the bottom of the oil pan then remove it before you drain the oil. I've had an old Jensen speaker magnet on mine forever.
You could add a bypass filter to catch the really fine stuff that gets past your regular filter.

Jensen Triaxles and a Kraco equalizer amp. Ah the 70s.

[dataway]

Is it possible the engine is fresh?

[25stevem]

If it’s got a rowdy cam in it then I would be checking on just how much lift it’s applying.
The stock set up of springs, retainers and guide height can’t take a ton more lift if it’s over the stock .406”.

[mchell]

Originally Posted by chiphead

Hi,

I've just bought a new to me 67 LeMans project car. It's got a late 60s WZ code 400 with a huge rowdy cam. Upper valvetrain looks stock, bolt-in oil drippers, stock rocker arms, spring shields, etc. Very clean up top, no sludge.

Engine runs really well, great oil pressure, no strange noises. I changed the oil for the first time and cut the oil filter open. The oil was black, contaminated with carbon and some fuel. There wasn't any hunks or slivers in the filter pleats. But the oil itself was full of microscopic metal. It all sticks to a magnet, and looks like microscopic arrowheads. What could it be? Pontiac DNA? I have no idea of the engine's history or what's inside it, other than it had a history of carb issues. All I know is it runs like a beast. All 8 cylinders are dead nuts at 150 PSI on a compression test.

Should I run some cheap oil through it for a few minutes to see if it clears, or do I need to dig deeper?

They always run great before they blow!

Sounds like you’ve got a lot of metal swimming in the oil…..I would at the very least change it and check again to be sure…might send a sample to blackstone. Give you some food for thought.

[chiphead]

Here's a picture under the valvecover. What can you guys tell from the pic? I think the heads are 62s but the numbers are gone off the port. The engine was built by a prior owner and is undocumented. He also went through a good amount of effort to hide what it was. All the casting numbers are ground off. Only thing left is WZ on the engine block.

[lust4speed]

My money is also on distributor gear wear. So few places to generate shards that can be picked up by a magnet.

[Joe's Garage]

And that means that it's EATING that drive gear on the camshaft, too.

Pull the distributor and find out how bad it is. Hopefully it's not too far gone.

Presuming that the distributor gear is going away, I'd probably replace it with a polymer gear for now.
That would buy you some time and the little bits of polymer might be slightly less damaging
than shards of metal in the oil.

Good luck!

[25stevem]

With how hard it’s getting to be to turn up good rebuildable blocks that are not already.060” over, I would not fire up that motor again until I nailed down what’s not right with it.
If the grit is eating up main bearings and one spins you may have to kiss that block goodbye.

[Half-Inch Stud]

Probably just metal that was in the way. Should be good now. Wow this coffee is good.

[chiphead]

Well, y'all were right. I pulled the dizzy and the gear is not happy. It's got some abnormal wear and a slight sharp edge on the driven side of the teeth. I did some poncho yoga and looked down at the cam drive gear. It looks like it's chewed up too. Dammit, boy.

So off comes the intake to check the cam lobes. I'm guessing a damaged cam gear warrants replacement of the camshaft? What typically causes distributor gear failures? It appears to have a 60 PSI pump based on cold pressures.

I'll get the valley pan and intake off. More to come.

[lust4speed]

I've seen quite a few chewed up distributor gears and usually the cam gear isn't near as bad. As Joes' Garage said above, you might get by with the polymer gear. Any way to get a photo of the cam gear and post it? Had one that fully apple cored the distributor gear and we put on a BOP composite gear and 12,000 miles later the polymer gear has very little wear.

[chiphead]

So I got the valley pan off and took pics. What do you guys think of the cam gear and the cam lobes?

Run or replace?

[lust4speed]

I think distributor gear looks good. Some of the lobes look questionable but it could be the flash. I'd proceed with the polymer gear and run it.

Let's see what others say.

[Joe's Garage]

First was back around 1980 when that new-fangled Mallory dual point distributor ate the gear in a 1970 RAIII Judge. That time it 'apple cored' both the distributor AND the cam gear, so it got a new factory cam and lifters and double-roller timing chain and ran another 30k miles.

Second was a few years later on a beater 1971 GP 400 engine. Distributor gear bad but cam gear not as bad, so it just got a used factory distributor gear and we drove it about another 5k before we sold it. And the buyer drove it probably 20k before he sold it.

Then there were a couple that happened to coincide with planned engine refreshing, so everything just got replaced.

The last one was a buddy's rebuilt 1970 455HO that had about 2k miles on the engine after a complete rebuild by a local machine shop. The timing started jumping around a bit and we pulled the distributor to swap it out for a known good one and the gear looked like yours - maybe a little more chewed up.

The cam gear still looked decent - like yours - so we put in a polymer gear and it's been running fine for around 10-12k miles since then.

After that very first one shredded itself forty years ago, we got in the habit of using a very fine stainless steel wire wheel on a bench grinder to 'deburr' ANY new steel distributor gears AND deburr the gear on every new camshaft we installed. You'd be surprised how sharp some of those gear tooth edges are when they are newly machined. NEVER had a gear problem after we started doing that.

Best ten minutes of time we ever spend prepping parts for camshaft swaps or during rebuilds.

If that was MY motor, and I was already inside like you are, I'd invest some more time inspecting the cam lobes and lifter faces - actually taking each lifter out to inspect for any weird wear on the bottom and inspecting each lobe to make sure that they aren't starting to show wear.

If all of the lifter bottoms still looked nice and polished with no straight wear patterns or scuffing, I'd pop a polymer gear on that distributor and put everything back together and enjoy the engine for a while longer.

I would definitely swap out the oil and filter again in fifty miles to try and get as many of the remaining shards out of there as possible.

Of course, my future oil change ritual would now include pulling the distributor out to just eyeball the polymer gear. That's easy enough.

But if ANYTHING relating to the lifters or cam looked weird, we'd definitely be shopping for replacement parts.

Hopefully the polymer gear is all you will need to do right now.

Good luck!