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Engine bearing job turns into complete disaster

I've never seen a sbc pump "loose prime" if it had been primed correctly. To put the rear main bearing in they would have had to drop the oil pump. Had they not disturbed it too much it probably still would have had oil in it. But I've been known to pull the cover off and pack the gears with petroleum jelly as to make sure it's got something in there. Reinstalling the pump they could have broken the plastic sleeve on the end of the oil pump driveshaft which could cause issues.

Ideally after doing a bearing job I would have pre-lubed the system by running a drill on the oil pump to make sure the pump built pressure. Obviously they did not do that here. Had they done that they would have found the lack of pressure without turning the engine over and having to do the bearing job a second time.

Why the bearings were wiped out after 135k miles is a good question though. If it was a bearing clearance issue I would think the pressure would have gotten less over time and not all at once. So why would it drop all of the sudden? Oil pump failure? Pump driveshaft failure? Leaked oil out? But it stands to reason once the pressure went away that's when the bearings got scored up. So did they go after the symptom of no oil pressure and fixed the bearings but not find the cause? Probably. With the bearings in the first time and not fixing the cause they fired it up and no oil pressure still. At that point they had to backtrack to find why it had no pressure. It's my best guess at what might have happened.

Bearings wiping out is a factor of loss of lubrication or too tight or loose setup. The engine mounts would not cause this issue at all.
 
ZooMad75 said:
Reinstalling the pump they could have broken the plastic sleeve on the end of the oil pump driveshaft which could cause issues.
With the bearings in the first time and not fixing the cause they fired it up and no oil pressure still. .
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I never had any oil pressure issues before the shop worked on it. Only after looking at the rear main crank bearing when replacing the rear main seal that's when they said it needed new bearings. Oil pressure symptoms occurred after this last time they worked on it. The owner said it had pressure initially when they put it back together and first started it up. So probably that sleeve must have broke / driveshaft came loose and then it lost pressure.

As far as wiping out bearings... What about a cracked torque converter hub? Also, I've had to replace the fuel pump a couple times and changed the oil right after. Maybe fuel pump diaphragm leaked gas into oil?
 
now we're getting somewhere,,,,

First off, I wouldn't put a lot of faith in a shop that installed a rear main seal backwards....it is possible that the rear main thrust portion of the bearing was wiped.. if you had an issue with torque converter causing excessive thrust. I know there are several things in the trans/flexplate area that can cause this... also if the fuel pump did spill gas into the crankcase... bearings can get wiped out fast...

Any chance the shop failed to realize that the crank was cut .010 and installed std. bearings? another thing to consider is that the cam may have wiped a lobe or two by now...

without being able to see the engine and or parts, we can guess all day about cause and effect.. btw.... I can't see how desert heat or bad motor mounts can be traced to the root cause of the failure...
 
There are steel couplings to replace the crap plastic ones that connect the oil pump to it's drive shaft,I always used them instead of the nylon/plastic ones,even though they rarely fail..

I have seen main thrust bearings get wiped out by the transmission,automatics can create a lot of "push" on the crank if a cooler line is blocked or towing heavy loads can "balloon" the torque converter..motor home engines used to do it fairly often..but it mostly creates excess end play,not so much wipe out the rod bearings.
 
Ok now motor is apart, there was 2 collapsed lifters. But now he is saying the cam in the motor was installed with the incorrect thrust washer. The lifters are riding on the back of the cam. Sent me a picture. Is this really a thing? Two lifters were collapsed from the lack of oil pressure

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so it took 135k miles to find out the cam was installed wrong ?

and wrong trust washer ? unless doing a roller cam on sbc/bbc i dont recall them needing one .

i smell a lot more :poo: coming from this guy again .

2 dead lifters from his oil pressure screw up should be on him . and in my book its time for a new cam and lifter set if it was mine . who knows how many will be next . who is going to want to pull the intake and valve covers and swap more dead ones later .
 
As has been stated before in other posts, SBC lifters are not flat on the bottom and the cam lobes are slightly tapered.

this does two things, it causes the lifters to rotate in their bores, and causes the cam to be thrusted to the back of the block preventing cam walk.

The picture of the cam lobe is not that bad, it shows that the lifter was riding one the one side of the lobe, but that is to be expected...

If the lobe was ground round or flat, it would more than likely be scored a lot more than that.

I still think you are throwing good money after bad, pull the motor out, and go thru it.

there no telling what damage has been done at this point, and I don't think it is going to get any better....
 
I'd cut my losses and buy a replacement crate engine at this point. That engine will have so much glitter in it that it is bound to fail again sooner than later. Also, go get your truck from that shop. They shouldn't be working on it any further. Thrust washers on a camshaft? Anyone who knows anything about an SBC knows that isn't a thing unless it is a modern roller cam or a retrofit kit. I hope you paid visa so you can call them and get some of your money back. I wouldn't waste money on a lawyer, but a call to the BBB and bad google / yelp / FB reviews would be worthwhile.
 
Call the BAR (bureau of automotive repair) that's what they are for. They will do an investigation and make them refund your money if they are found at fault.
 
I am thinking that this auto shop you are dealing with forgot to put the oil pump drive shaft back into the engine during reassembly, which is why it had no oil pressure that shredded the engine. They just took it apart and put it back in before you got there and blamed the whole thing on you. This repair shop you are dealing with are trying to hide something, which is why you will never get a straight answer out of them. It seems there could also be a problem with blockage of the oil galleries towards the rear of the engine.
 
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OK yeah, i said just put it back together with new lifters and I want the truck back ASAP. I questioned him on the thrust washer, then he said he meant thrust / lock plate and circled a picture. Isnt this optional? And to say the wrong one was used to make the cam not sit right? I dont even think my truck has that installed.

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toddball said:
OK yeah, i said just put it back together with new lifters and I want the truck back ASAP. I questioned him on the thrust washer, then he said he meant thrust / lock plate and circled a picture. Isnt this optional? And to say the wrong one was used to make the cam not sit right? I dont even think my truck has that installed.

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"Thrust/Lock plate"

This guy is full of crap.Those locking plates only lock the cam bolts in place so they do not come loose, and do nothing to stop cam walk. They are not a factory stock item. I put one of those cam bolt locking plates on my GM Goodwrench 350 crate engine I bought for my truck along with an camshaft ant-walk thrust button because that is the way I roll with my own engines. I install these things myself due to the fact that I do not trust most mechanics out there to give a sh!t about my trucks. Neither of these things are factory stock, and many Chevy small block engines run for 100,000's of thousands of miles with out them. Did he bother to tell you that the cam bolts where loose? Did he even take the timing gear cover off the engine to even know if it had loose cam bolts, or a cam bolt locking plate or not?

This is the anti-walk cam thrust button I put installed in my SB engine in order to stop cam walk, but most Chevy engines run many thousands of miles without them.

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as said by 1-ton above its a bolt locking plate only for the cam gear to shaft .

it has ZERO to do with thrust between the block surface and cam gear on the shaft .

if you had a roller cam then you do need a thrust plate that bolts to the block face on a factory setup . but thats only 2 bolts .

as said he is blowing so much smoke up your ass you must look like a chimney burning damp wet wood .
 
I just talked to the engine builder, Champ Performance in Tucson. He said they did not put a "lock plate" on the cam to hold it in and doesn't need it for RV hydraulic flat tappet cam. The shop owner says your engine isn't factory anymore it's been rebuilt, and aftermarket flat tappet cams come with a lock plate. He never took off the timing cover. Wow. Yeah really at the end of my patience with this shop.
 
The shop owner sent me this picture to explain that cam lobe wear in the previous post. Is this even relevant? It says solid flat tappet.
The high side shouldn't have wear which is the case with that picture of the cam lobe I posted earlier. And low side wear would happen eventually after 135k miles right?

I have been asking him through out this ordeal 'are you sure that the cam is OK?', and he's like yeah should be fine and I'll have it back together today. It ran fine before I took it to them, able to make it up I70 through the Eisenhower tunnel at posted speed limit. But I think this is a stalling tactic for more time (down techs I wonder why?) and just to get me to pay him more money to put in a new cam.
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He's absolutely 100% full of bullshit dude. As the others have stated there is no need for a cam button on a flat tappet cam and lifter set. The very nature of the convex shape of the lifter and tapered grind of the lobe shape forces the cam into the block away from the cover.

He's full of it. Just in full blown cover his ass mode now. Pretty easy to blame the engine builder from another state. He screwed up and rather than man up and take care of it he's feeding you crap to mislead you into paying him more money to fix it again. Funny how the engine didn't have a problem with the cam and lifters until his hamfisted tech got a hold of it. Did you pin his ass down on that little nugget? You didn't have collapsed lifters when it can in, now you do. If they had a problem pumping up before you brought it in you would have heard it and felt it. He's doing a grand job as screwing you over, pull the plug now.
 
I would have been recording conversations a long time ago and talking to a lawyer. At least taking to the BBB and the state or county business license facility at this point.
 
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