I thought at first they were from the intermidiate shaft bushing. When I poped out the bushing it was a little worn but not enough to explain as much shavings as I found in the motor. the shavings are a little more gold then the bushing too. Any ideas? I cant think of any more copper or brass in the motor. Most of the shavings are in the pan but there is a decent amount in the lifter valley. Idea?


Thanks
Jake

I hate to be the bearer of bad news. BEARINGS.

If it's a new engine small amounts of bearing flakes is normal. It should decrease with each oil change though. If you have handfulls of it then something is wrong.

I don't like the way you talk of the amount found through out the engine. Better check your bearings. IMO it don't sound real healthy.

What bearing are going to be gold in color? There's probly all in total enough flake to coat one of my fingers. each one no bigger then an 1/8th inch. The motor doesn't have 500 miles on it.

I would say cam bearings.

The bearings have copper in them, the babbet is a mixture of lead, copper and a bunch of other things; take an old "silver" bearing and cut it in 1/2 and you will see a copper / bronze inner section; once the outer coating goes, they go quick...

I would suspect you put a cam bearing in upside down and it did not get oil.

How is the oil pressure?

The oil pressure was great. up around 60psi. I had a problem with the previous cam. It scrached a few of the bearing, plus one wasn't perfectly lined up. So I went ahead and had all new one installed. I have a hard time thinking thats whats causing it. I sure hope it's simplier than that. I'm tired of the car beeing on jackstands 95% of it's life! I'll Check it out tho.

Thanks
Jake

Bearings. Go ahead and pull it and go through it. You do not say if you built the motor, as other have said, could be cam bearings, or if the pistons were off of the rods a rod may be installed backwards onthe crank, (chamfer on wrong side). The copper is from the bearings, especially if you run the F-77 trimetal bearings. Be sure to use a gun barrel cleaning rod and/or pipe cleaners to clean out all of the oil passages and lifter galleries. Pulling the oil filter and sawing it in two will give you a good idea of what the motor saw. Good luck.

"IF YOU'RE UNDER CONTROL, YOU AIN'T GOING FAST ENOUGH."

Personally I would highly doubt cam bearings. I lean more toward the rod and/or main bearings. Very seldom see cam bearings go south.

Well I found the cause. 2 sets of rod bearings took a dump! Not to hard of a fix I supose now that the motor's out of the car. I guess I should start using one of those little rev chips in my 6al box when I go to do massive burn outs!

Sorry to here that but now I highly recommend having the shaft checked

When the motor was built, was this a crank and bearing kit, or new bearings on an existing crank? Were the rods re-sized? I would look at re-sizing at least the two rods that gave up, did the rod bearings spin? Was the crank turned undersize? There are a lot of things that could have happened here.

"IF YOU'RE UNDER CONTROL, YOU AIN'T GOING FAST ENOUGH."

The crank is the 1972 original crank. It was turned .010. The bearings are off the shelf clevitt. The motor hit pretty high up on the tack. I couldn't tell you exactly how many rmps it saw, but the motor started knocking right after that. I may have agrivated the problem on the drive home. When I got it home thats when I dicovered all the shavings.

Both sets of bearings spun. One bearing was through the one side, through the copper and almost to the other side. The motor was built maybe 2 or 3 years ago with LESS than 500 miles on it. I've had nothing but problems and it dosen't help that I work out of town.

You might peruse this site & checkout Sanborns oiling mods. he's a circle burner & is at the top of his game in regards to high rpm SB oiling mods. go to www.moparchat.com then scroll down to & click on circle track chat & Sanborns oil mods will be in a sticky at the top. It will take a long time to get through it all because there is alot of material to cover but it is EXCELLENT. & alot of it can be applied to big blocks as well.

So you've got the standard heavyweight pistons and rods with 3/8" bolts. The rod bolts were probably torqued and not tightened by measuring stretch, which means they could have been undertorqued, meaning less prestress on the bolts. When you overreved the motor the rod bolts stretched and released clamping force on the bearing shells, which spun.

The bolts do not have to stretch past their elastic limit to do this and you will not see anything wrong with the rod bolts.

If this happened to two crank throws the problem is systemic and you need to rebuild your rod big ends, all of them. Install ARP bolts and follow their directions on tightening. Go to their Website and read the papers on tightening torques.

R.