72 318 Scamp. Low oil pressure 1 minute after startup.

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Well I pulled the oil pump and pickup this afternoon and found more "stuff". Rock hard valve stem pieces were in the oil pickup along with some silicone! Imagine that.
The oil pump was scored inside and the pickup had a possible hairline crack that was covered with silicone.

This guy thought that silicone could solve all worldly problems.

Here are the pictures. Guess I will buy a oil pump and pickup for sure..
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Even the pump bypass is scratched up.
How are you going to flush the valve seal pieces out of the oil pasages?
 
I would replace all that and take out the oil plugs and used compressed air to blow out all the oil passages.
 
I would disassemble that whole engine and start over if this clown put silicone over a cracked pickup tube he is capable of anything , I would for sure check the rod caps and see if they are put on the right rods and the right way . this clown has clearly proven that he should not work on anymore engines ..
 
If that oil pump is ground up like that, what do you think the bearings are going to look like?
 
maybe i'm wrong here but the oil leaves the oil pump and goes through the filter first before it goes through the engine ?
 
IMHO..... I'd certainly pull a couple of rod and main bearings and inspect since it is out. It is an old engine.... nothing to lose but your time to put in the new pump and pickup and try to see how it will do, assuming it ran OK other than the pressure problem. Overall, the inside of the engine looks pretty clean.... looks like regular oil changes and no short runs or gas leaks in the carb to damage bores or build up scaly crud in the engine.

At least any bits inside the engine were nicely pulverized into tiny particles by the pump. But I gotta admit.... the 'no oil to the #8 rockers' has me wondering if some of the pulverized bits worked their way up there and settled in the back of that rocker shaft.... they would fall down right where the rocker oil holes are.

OP, did you get compression readings before you pulled it? I do not see them.
 
jimjimjimmy said:
maybe i'm wrong here but the oil leaves the oil pump and goes through the filter first before it goes through the engine ?
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Yes... Now, if the filter element plugged up too much with pulverized bits, it's conceivable that the filter bypass opened and let the bits through. It's impossible to say if that may have happened or not.
 
Since you've gone this far!
Unscrew the oil filter stud, and remove the round plate with all the holes.
There should be a pipe plug filling a hole under the plate.
Sometimes folks not familiar with our engines forget to replace the plug when putting everything back together.
This can make the pressure drop after warm up if it's missing.
 
Think about the chunks that did not go into the pickup or the pump they're the ones that bounced around off the cam and off the rotating assembly and got flung back up in two places and crunched some more.
 
I cannot think of no reason not to have a complete engine disassembled, time consuming and expensive it may be. The engine rebuilder has already proved his worth, can anything he did be trusted now? You have the engine out, to me that's half the battle, seeing how he bent and fractured the pickup tube only leaves me to believe he did not know or cared how to do things correctly.
 
Thanks everyone once again for giving comments on this low oil pressure problem. I am learning so much listening to your information.
To answer some of your questions here is what I have found so far.
When I did the compression test they were all in the 120 to 125 psi range. I know this is a little low but from what I understand this is probably a 8 to 1 compression engine so maybe that is as good as it gets.
No 8 rocker arms not getting oil for fixed. I took off the whole passenger side rocker arm assembly and found a chunk of silicone jammed in the shaft. I cleaned it out with brake cleaner and compressed air. Now #8 rocker arms are getting lots of oil.
Ths timing chain is double roller and looks almost new.
Those pieces of old valve seals were not in the oil pump. I heard rattling and they fell out of the oil pickup screen. Which is bad enough.
There are fairly new brass freeze plugs installed and none are leaking.

Tomorrow I m taking the engine down to a bare block. Will look at everything.
I will post results tomorrow.
 
jimjimjimmy said:
I would disassemble that whole engine and start over if this clown put silicone over a cracked pickup tube he is capable of anything , I would for sure check the rod caps and see if they are put on the right rods and the right way . this clown has clearly proven that he should not work on anymore engines ..
Click to expand...

Exactly.
 
OK, thanks for the compression readings. The reason to ask is to see if the bores/rings seemed to be in decent shape, then I'd be more inclined to go with it. But sounds like you are going down the 'exploratory surgery' road anyway; good deal.

And thanks for the update on #8 rocker oiling. Who knows how that got there.....
 
Here is the latest inspection pics. More silicone! This time in the water passage of the block.
Camshaft is not stock. It's pretty big as a matter of fact. It is a Bug Muther Thumper! I looked up the grind from the number on the back of the cam.

With the flat top pistons and the heads that it has 8 really have no idea what the compression ratio currently is. Thinking about changing the cam to something like a XE262? What do you guys think?
Here are some pics.

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RustyRatRod said:
Why do yall always insist on doing things the hard way?

Summit Racing® Oil Pump Primers SUM-901013
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its not the hard way, its the "It's cheap, It's Sunday night and I need it now" way....grinding a hex on the end of a piece of all-thread...spin clockwise and hold on! :)
Well I was half right in the valve seals petrified and crumbling into the pan and pickup, dead wrong on the pickup being so stuffed that it could not pick up oil. When I install the pan, I deliberately turn the oil pickup up to contact the pan and put a 1/8 piece of wood on top (motor inverted on stand) and put the pan on with no gaskets. Ill push the pan to the rails and that will push the pickup down to the right clearance. lift the pan, remove the shim and add gaskets and torque. Dont buy the M72HV oil pump, you dont need its extra capacity.
 
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Do you know what rear gears are in the car?

“If it were me”, and it didn’t have at least 3.23’s or 3.55’s, I’d run something smaller than the XE262.
Let’s see a pic of the valve springs.
 
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Scampi said:
Here is the latest inspection pics. More silicone! This time in the water passage of the block.
Camshaft is not stock. It's pretty big as a matter of fact. It is a Bug Muther Thumper! I looked up the grind from the number on the back of the cam.

With the flat top pistons and the heads that it has 8 really have no idea what the compression ratio currently is. Thinking about changing the cam to something like a XE262? What do you guys think?
Here are some pics.
Click to expand...
Well, at least it is Hi-temp silcone in the water jacket LOL. Being a '72, then the factory pistons would be low compression ones... like around 8:1. You can carefully measure how far they are below the deck at TDC; they will probably be something like .070-.080" below deck.

Man, that cam would really dump the low RPM torque into the toilet LOL... less than stock /6 territory for low RPM torque. IMHO, you are on the right track for the new cam.

How do you intend to use this engine/car? And as asked above, what rear axle does it have? Have you figured out what torque converter is in there? Those things are all gonna play into cam selection.
 
The pictures of the block shoes a lot of junk in the passages. I would probabally pressure wash the block as best I could and blow it out with air. Any possibility of you stripping it down and having a machine shop clean it out for you? My machinist will hot tank and install new cam bearings and freeze plugs for 150.00.
Depending on your use of the car, a stock 340 or 360 cam. Probabally would not go any larger than a summit racing .454/272* .050@216* cam if it were me.
 
The engine now has been taken totally apart. This what I found. Rod bearings .020 under, Main bearings. 030 under. Crank isn't in terrible shape. I could maybe polish it. Can't feel grooves in it. Looks like it was possibly rebuilt twice. Say this from looking at the date on the road vs the main bearings.
The nuts on some of the rods are a different type. Don't know why except that whoever rebuilt this engine used whatever he had laying around just to make it work.

My last problem is in the block. Look at the picture posted. Looks like a possible internal hole in the block. What do you guys think?

My brother in law has a 360 that he got at an estate sale complete for $75. He took the starter off it and said that I could have it for free! If this engine is going to cost a lot to fix I may go with his offer. As far as I now the block has the same dimensions as a 318. This is I think, a 1971 block.

Here are the latest pictures.

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There's all kinda GUNK everywhere isn't there? Somebody did a poor job of cleaning.....or no job at all. Good luck!
 
The hole that's rusted is behind #8 piston on the passenger side of the block. Maybe it's ok since the cylinder doesn't have a hole in the cylinder itself. This just makes me nervous.
 
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