i have to put a new rear main seal in my 440 this weekend. here's what i found when i drained the oil. what do you think it eating. lifter/cam lobe? this is definately not a good time for this. the packers will be here in 3 days.

Shane

I can't tell what I'm looking at?

its motor oil in a glass.

shane

Looks to me like bearings. I have seen that before, and it wasn't pretty .......

ROB

Intake comes off easy enough to check.

Hard to see what that picture really looks like

You can pull the valve covers and wiggle the rocker arms. I had a cam with 3 lobes going flat and the oil looked the same as yours. The three rocker arms for those lobes were loose and sloppy. ONE of them was spongy. The lifter under the spongy one was so worn, there was a small hole in the center of the worn lifter face. I'm sure that it wasn't holding enough oil to even open the valve at all. Last year I mentioned on this site that I wiped 2 Comps cams in my Charger and that I decided to put the MP '509 cam back in. I got several responses from guys that strongly advised me to pull the motor apart to douche out all the cam and lifter shavings. I DID end up pulling the motor, but my reasoning was to address an oil burning issue due to poor ring seal. Upon teardown, I found very little debris anywhere. The oil pump did have some bits embedded in the rotors so I replaced it. The oil galleys may have had crud in them that I couldnt see.
Whether your silvery flecks in the oil are from bearing material or cam and lifter carnage, keep us in the loop. Its a bummer to never hear back from people asking advice.

Just tore mine dwon from the wiped lobe deal.Hey pop the valve covers and hook a remote starter switch up,pop the coil wire and watch the rockers work.Alot easier than a compression test.

i pulled the intake and found 2 cam lobes pretty scuffed up. i must have caught it early cuz it hasnt developed a miss yet. this is a 52K mile engine out of a motorhome. what would cause it to do this. i have been running 20-50 vr1 oil in it.

any ideas?

Shane

How are the lifter bores? Do the lifters drop in easily? It could be they are hanging up and not turning like they should.

Modern oil does not adequately lubricate a flat tappet cam *No zinc, I use Rottella in all my flat tappet engines. Yes it has less zinc than it did, but it still has plenty.

Rick, you must not be familiar with the VR1 oil. Its NOT conventional oil.