440 stopped running, why??

OK gentlemen, really need your help. Here's what's going on.

I have a 1969 GTX, 440, Hemi 4-speed, Dana 60 w/4.10''s, Took my dad for a ride around town, did a couple of rolling burn-outs. 3rd one I revved it to about 3000, dumped the clutch, it started to go good as usual, got mostly through 1st and heard a loud sound like a "PIIINNGGG!" kind of like to pieces of metal hitting. The engine then barely ran, idling very low (maybe 600 rpm's), giving it gas just seemed to make it worse, rolled another 50 yards or so and saw the oil pressure dropping. i turned off the engine at zero pounds of il pressure and pulled over.

Got the car home and drained the oil and pulled the filter. Oil looked fine though slight smell of gasoline. Cut open oil filter and saw no signs of metal failure,

Pulled distributor and oil pump drive shaft and both looked good. Cam gear where it meets oil pump drive shaft looked fine.

Removed oil pump and tore it apart. Some scoring on inside of pump and metal knick spots. But nothing obvious.

Car has electric fuel pump and has good fuel pressure.

Ordered new Mopar HV oil pump and hardened shaft to be on safe side. Thinking to put on new pump, add my 20/50 weight oil, prime the pump, installed new drive pump shaft and distributor and try and turn over the motor.

Any other thoughts???

Please help!

Thanks!

Why don't you reinstall the old pump and prime the system with a drill to see if you get oil pressure. You also might want to pull the valve covers to see if you bent a pushrod and unseated a lifter.

Already ordered a new pump and to be honest whenI took the old pump all apart didn't pay attention to get it back together right. Pause it's been on the engine since 1994, so feel safe with putting on a new one.

If I pull the valve covers off, would it be obvious identifying a bent push rod? I have original max wedge adjustable rockers as an FYI and crane hi-intensity lifters with a 302 duration crane cam. Engine was built back in 1992 and has about 40,000 miles on it. Forged crank and forged TRW flat top Pistons, stock rods that were shot peened and magnafluxed with arp rod bolts.

As said above. Prime the pump,with a drill,& check oil,pressure, a lifter could have come out. then that valve is closed all the time, wil run like you describe.

If I prime the pump and the lifter came out as describe with the oil pressure not rise or be low?

P/V collision. do a compression test & holler back

If you shut if off really fast no metal would reach the oil filter yet , as the others mentioned , bent push rod and or broken rocker arm and if you prime the oil pump and it does not have any resistance (make sure your spinning the pump in the right direction) you might have sheared the oil pump drive shaft , good luck.

With a drill do I spin clockwise or counterc clockwise to prime the pump?

The oil pump drive shaft was in good shape.

CCW

With your new pump installed, prime the pump with the drill motor in reverse, use the proper hex priming rod counter clock wise. Try priming the engine, if you get little or no oil pressure then you pull off the valve covers , check to see if any rockers are broken, check to see if all the push rods are seated properly. It sounds to me that a push rod dropped of and a lifter popped out of the bore causing the loss of oil pressure. Hopefully that is all.

Seriously there are there isn't even a hand full of parts, the only thing you could put together backwards is the pressure relief valve and it's spring, the other 3 parts only go one place.

when you take apart your new pump to clean/check clearances if the circular outer rotor piece has a stamped mark on one of the flat surfaces I would install it back in the same way (on top or on the bottom). Might be nothing but never hurts to be proactive (helps keeps Mr Murphy away).

pull the valve covers and turn the engine over slowly and watch the rockers. Make sure they all travel the same. If you find one (or more) that look odd pull that rocker shaft and look at the tops of all the valves. If they don't look even you have a problem. Do you know what RPM you were at when it went south?

if you bent a pushrod or jumped a lifter,the associated rocker will be loose

Sounds like the dist.drive broke & the ign.timing jumped & the oil psi. dropped,the eng.would not run like your describing with 1 rocker/cyl.down.

I'd pull the plugs (makes for easier turning) & put a 1&1/4 socket/short extension/breaker bar on the crank bolt & turn it CW. You'll know something in 2 minutes

Sounds like the dist.drive broke & the ign.timing jumped & the oil psi. dropped,the eng.would not run like your describing with 1 rocker/cyl.down.

Read the original post, the oil pump drive is not broken. How many broken distributor drives have you seen on a BB Mopar?

I don't think the oil pump is your issue, just

I would have started at the valve covers, then the intake. I'm betting you have bent more then one push rod. Hopefully it wasn't the rockers, valves, or the cam. Gene

Remove valve covers . Turn damper to tdc. See if #1 is still #1 and distributor location is #1. Then remove timing cover sounds like chain jumped.

Yes, get back with us ASAP!

Agree!

My first thought,,,especially with the piiiiiinnnggg followed by engine barely running,,,however not certain why drop of oil pressure,,,,except if timing chain totally sheared,,,which is possible after a few additional turns of the engine.

Doubt that a single failed rocker/pushrods/lifter would cause the few moments of excessively poor performance before shutdown, but could cause loss of oil pressure if lifter popped out I guess.

they could if the valve broke or went thru the piston...ask me how I know. Here I'll just show you. And this was at 3000rpm at most...

Sure sounds like what happened to the 440 in my '70 Bee a few months ago on the way to a car cruise. I knew I was in trouble when I pulled the #7 spark plug and found the tip smashed. To say I'm NOT happy with 440 Source heads would be the understatement of the century... Small hydraulic cam and under 6k RPM. In my case, the #7 intake locks pulled right through the retainer. The head is now a paper weight. The #7 piston (SRP forged) has the valve embedded in it. Twisted the "6 pack" rod slightly and the bore is cracked.

Mine were expensive Diamond 11:1 pistons and very ported 516 heads. The guy who built the short block didn't knock the rear cam plug in far enough and the cam "walked" that started a chain reaction that resulted in the #4 intake valve to go thru the piston, rip the cylinder wall, then it sucked pieces over into #1 (I think) beat up that cylinder and wall...oh yeah and fill the oil pan with antifreeze. At least I wasn't at the stripe going 120+ this happened on the way to the track.

Rear cam plug just keeps oil from pouring out of block, does not support cam at all. Just sayin'.

Agreed. THe thrust surface is on the back of the cam gear.


To the original post, any news?

Here's the latest. Install the new high volume oil pump and spun if ccw with drill. Oil pressure read 70lbs. Took off the valve covers and turned the engine with wrench and socket on crank bolt. Turned free. No push rods looked damaged, nor did valve springs or rockers. (I have original max wedge rockers for what it's worth.)

I rotated the motor and confirmed all of the rockers went up and down completely without a problem. So put back on valve covers and took out all spart plugs.

I run NOS...

Found to spark plugs with partial melting of the spark plug tips. Also, to back most spark plugs were completely wet and one fouled with oil inside and out.

Changed spark plugs, gapped to .38 and tried starting motor. It would almost start and then backfire spitting gas through both carbs.

As an FYI I was not using NOS when the motor stopped running right and lost oil pressure.

Next step I guess it to do a compression test. If that passes I'll have to find someone local in Los Angeles to try and set timing as I'm guessing I messed it up taking distributor in and out and oil pump drive shaft.

Anyone else got any thoughts on what could be wrong?? Perhaps cracked pistons??

BTW, someone had asked at what RPM it went bad. It was around 6000 RPM. I beleive my MSD 6AL rev limited is set to 6500. I have rev'd it to this RPM for many, many years without issue. I starting to guess it'll be one or two pistons gone bad #8 and #7 spark plugs were very wet and #7 had oil on the inside and outside.

And/or the timing chain (which is a double roller for what it's worth) jumped as people have suggested OR the single bolt cam bolt sheared off. IF it sheared off would things still rotate fine??

Sorry for my engine ignorance. I'm pretty good at tearing it down, but finding TDC, etc. and I haven't a clue. :-(

Finding top dead center is easy, look at the harmonic balancer. Rotate the engine with the #1 spark plug removed to 0,you should feel or hear the compression, if none rotate around again to 0 the compression stroke. remove the distributor cap and see where the rotor is pointing. It should be pointing to #1 . If you didn't replace the oil pump drive in correctly it could be off causing starting problem . If the rotor is not pointing at #1 remove the distributor and look at the position of the distributor slot in the oil pump drive . The slot must be facing straight front to back of the engine. if not use a long screw driver to rotate the drive to the proper direction, [ rotate the drive not the engine ] then replace the distributor, The rotor should now be pointing to #1.

(1) With the plugs out for easier turning & with a 1&1/4" socket/short extension/breaker bar turn the dampener either way whichever is closest till the slit is at TDC (zero on the timing tab). (2) Then turn the dampener a bit (CCW) from that TDC position till the nearest tooth which will actually be going CW and it is now lined up dead even with the magnet (actually I'd take the tooth past the magnet then come back to it-(chain stretch) till its dead even. (3) at that point see if the rotor is pointing to or pretty close to either the #1 or the #6 dist cap terminal (4) also see where the dampener slit is on the timing tab IE 15 BTDC. Holler back

well somehow the cam walked.

OK, motor problem STILL not identified. Here's the latest info.

Did a dry compression test on all cylinders today with all spark plugs removed and throttle wide open. Here is the results:

Cylinder # Compression seen
1 170
2 179
3 170
4 161
5 169
6 180
7 150
8 152

Engine with new oil pump has almost 70 pounds of oil pressure.

More and more I'm thinking the issue maybe the chain jumped and the timing is all out of whack. We will use top dead center tool to check timing next weekend.

Any new thoughts? Are my cylinder pressures OK for a street motor (that sees some strip) with likely 40,000 miles on the rebuild?

Then you had a problem elsewhere because the cam doesn't even touch the rear plug.

Odd that the back cylinder on each side of the block are both 20 psi less ? or is that 7 and 8 2 cylinders side by side ?

What are you using for head gaskets ?

I don't think any of this cam walking is suggestions on my mystery problem, right?? I'd aprpeciate any feedback on my recently posted compression results above. Thanks!

Yep, agreed. Those are cylinders on oppostite sites furthest back by the firewall. The #8 showed some oil on the inside of plug and the plug is new. All the plugs stink of gas.

And I recall the head gaskets were Felpro. I can try and confirm that and the thickness as have the engine shop receipt from installing the heads I have on it now from several years ago.

No it doesn't,

you seem to be new to moparts, it's not unusual for a thread to be derailed or for someone to ignore your question and instead tell you what you should do even if you didn't ask.

Check the ignition timing while cranking. Is it off? I'd check the cam timing. If the cam was installed straight up both #6 tappets should be exactly level at #1 TDC compression stroke. Though I'd expect the compression numbers to be lower across the board if the cam chain jumped or cam bolt lose/sheared gear dowel pin and retarded the cam.
Doug

OK, so somehow the distributor was way off. I'm starting to think the timing chain "jumped" as some have suggested. I believe I've got the distributor set back to 0 at top dead center. Should the car start if this is the case? Do I then use my timing light and start adding timing after it starts assuming it does? And if the timing chain did jump, will it likely do it again??

If the timing chain jumped the timing set must be replaced. Jumping means it's either stretched or the gears have gone bad.

Yeah, figured that would be the case. This has been LOTS of learnings for a person with limited mechanical ability. If I take everything off the front of the engine and get to the timing chain cover, do I need to take oil pan off too? I hope not.

no on the pan Q & you'd set the dampener slit to 15 BTDC and move housing till magnet is dead even with the tooth

You have pulled the dist and the dist drive out of the motor. The only way you will know if the timing gears have jumped is to pull the timing cover and look.

Are we sure he didn't just loose ignition for a moment? What are you running for an ignition system? You have a rev limiter, which might suggest maybe an MSD?
I went back and read the 1st post. He heard pinging, then felt loss of power (hit rev limiter, ignition failure, shut down spark, flood plugs with gas (6,000 rpm, no spark). Then it idled at lower then normal rpm (ign came back, but now the plugs are gas fouled). Lost oil pressure (sudden motor shutdown from high rpm, sudden reduction in vehicle speed, worn bearings from NOS?) Then he turned ignition off and hauled it home. No place does he say he checked for spark. He was more concerned about no oil pressure, and pulled the dist & dist drive, then the oil pump and disassembled it.

Oil pump wear consistent with a 40K motor. Lower compression numbers with the rear 2 cylinders consistent with a dual quad street motor probably often running rich. He is showing decent oil pressure with a fresh pump on a cold motor with fresh oil, but that may not be telling the true condition of the rods and the rod bearings with consideration of multiple 6500 rev limiter hits and the addition of nos.

There may or may not be a timing issue, and its something I would be looking at. Baring a timing chain issue, things are adding up to an ignition loss, or partial ignition failure compounded by a worn motor that has seen 40,000 miles of hard use.

It may run if he brings #1 up on compression and gets the dist & dist drive in correctly, adds fresh oil, and new plugs, presuming it has consistent spark. Gene

OK, here's the latest.

I want to answer Gene question in his last post.

I have an MSD pro billet distributor with no more than 300 miles on it connected with an MSD 6AL box. I believe I have the rev limiter set to 6700.

A best friend has been helping me to try and get the issue figured out. The distributor was waaaaay off. It required pulling the pump shaft, gear and resetting it to TDC and then re wiring all of the spark plug wire to the distributor. Once this was done I added some initial advance to the distributor and it started right up, though choppy. I added additional timing and it was starting to run GREAT again when suddenly there was a bad noise from passenger side. Sounds like an exhaust leak or perhaps a lifter knocking. It was not there on first start up. Came at second one when timing was added and it was running better.

Car has better oil pressure than ever with Mopar oil pump and new hardened oil pump shaft.

Current plans are to order new plug wires as one I have on now are cracked at boots and likely arching. Will order new Firecores this week. Do any of you know if there premade ones for a 440 fit a B body well without lots of extra length?

Will also order new Cloyes double roller and try and figure out how to install a replacement. Everything points to the chain jumping of gear tooth breaking as others have suggested.

AND will order new exhaust gaskets for my SuperComp 2" headers hoping it's just an exhaust leak and not a lifter or rod bearing... It's been a long couple of months...for a person with limited mechanic skills...

Any thoughts??? Best way to get to exhaust leak or lifter or rod bearing??

For what it's worth I recall hearing the noise thought no as pronounced in the past and it would go away not long after starting the car once the engine got warmed up.

If it's running it's not the timing chain.
Doug

Doug, several others have offered it the chain could be loose/sloppy or tooth broke on timing gear and jumped. That would seem reasonable to me and explain how the distributor became physical position wrong. How else would you explain it?

The dist was pulled out of the motor, and the dist drive were pulled out of the motor, first post.

Once those were pulled, we have no way of knowing if they were reinstalled in the exact same position when they were reinstalled. Any reference to timing, at that point is a lost cause. It was not checked before it was pulled apart.

If the motor now runs, the timing chain and gears are in the proper place. With a timing chain that has slipped one tooth, the motor will barely run. If it has slipped 2 teeth, it won't start at all. That said, the chain could be stretched, and the gears may be worn, do to the miles on the motor (40,000 mile on a Mopar motor is not a lot of miles, but the amount of abuse the motor has seen does take its tole). That is/was not the cause of your problem. If there were high quality parts used in your motor when it was rebuilt, I would be surprised if the chain or gears are worn very much at all in 40,000 miles. A worn chain/timing gears can cause the ignition timing to retard and could cost you ultimate performance, which would get progressively worse until it jumped a tooth. You can detect a worn timing chain & gears with a timing light watching the timing marks when the motor is idling. The timing mark will move around a few degrees without you doing anything.

The tick when the timing was dialed in does give me some concern, given the compression test numbers. Mopar allowed a 20% difference in compression between the highest cylinder and the lowest cylinder before recommending a rebuild. You are right at that cut. Now that you got the motor running again, I think I would recheck the cylinder compression test and see how closely it matches the first compression test. You might have better numbers now.

The tick could be an exhaust leak, a bad ignition wire, a burnt valve, a cracked piston, a broken crank, a chunk of carbon, a bad lifter, a bad cam lobe, a bent push rod, a damaged rocker, or a few other things.

You still don't know what caused your inimical problem. It was not the timing chain or timing gears, and it was not the oil pump. Back the rev limiter down to about 6200 and stay off the rev limiter! Shift sooner! It will make the motor a lot happier, it will live longer. It will not hurt your performance much, might even be faster! Gene

Thanks Gene for taking the time to provide all this feedback. It's greatly appreciated. I did check the position of the oil pump gear shaft before I pulled it and put the new hardened one in the same position, I also marked the position of the distributor and cap. It's possible they move but Ai was extremely careful the not have that happen.

I feel I used good quality parts when I had the motor built by a professional back in 1993. New stock forged crank, new LY rods, forged TRW 40 over pistons, original max wedge adjustable rockers, deep sump morose oil pan, Cloyes double roller, etc. NOT high grade racing parts, but good street mild strip stuff back then.

I've run 3 bottles of NOS in it over the years. Besides that it's just been run hard on the motor.

Perhaps it was just the rev limiter as you offered. But once it stop running right after I heard the noise it had pretty much no power at all and then just died out about a minute later.

When I get my new spark plug wires I'll fire it back up and check the timing and see if I see the timing move for no reason as you offer. If I do I'm going to try relaxing the timing gear and chain and cross my fingers.

Can anyone tell me how much to torque the crank bolt and the timing chain bolt? I'm looking to chain the timing chain and gear.

Also, is there a good book I can buy that has what to torque all bolts in a 440?

Thanks and Merry Christmas!!

135 on the big crank bolt (clean/dry threads). couldn't find a spec for the cam gear bolt but you cant go wrong with Googling it, need (A) the grade, 3 lines is grade 5 and 6 lines is grade 8 (B) the dia (C) fine or coarse threads & likely someone will chime in before you have to go that far

Straight from my '69 Factory Service Manual: Crankshaft Bolt (Vibration Damper) - 135 ft-lbs.; Camshaft Lock Bolt - 35 ft-lbs.

Hope this works:

...

Wow, you guys are awesome!! Thanks for all the help and responses.

Merry Christmas!!

And my dumb question for the day, do I put my manual transmission in drive to tighten the crank bolt to keep the engine from spinning?? I guess same for the cam bolt?

Oh, and what do you use on the timing chain cover for sealant? RTV blue?

tranny in dr for that. you'll hit 35 before it turns in neutral. I'd brush some permatex #3 aviation gasket cement on a tailor made gasket or spray the same gasket with permatex 99MA "high tack" the thin red spray stuff in the purple can.

OK, here's the latest. we installed new MSD 8.5 wires today, regapped the plugs from 38 to 40 (some were close to 35), tightened the header bolts and a clamp around the header "slip sleeve" with one of the primary tubes, started up the car and no more noise. Shut it off, added some timing and it ran good. Added some more timing and it now idles at 800-900 rpm and has 13 inches of vacuum with no changes made to carbs. This is the MOST vacuum I've gotten in years and the car sounds great and runs smooth.

Still don't know what initially caused the issue. i will say I turned the car off once and turned it back on with no changes and the car idle and vacuum improve (rpm's by 200 and vacuum by almost 3"). I'm guessing it all still points to a sloppy timing chain or messed up gear in some way. We will put a timing light on it tomorrow and see if timing is bouncing around as it was suggested it would do if the timing chain is sloopy.

New question. One is with the new high volume Mopar oil pump installed I'm getting almost 80 psi o foil pressure versus 60 with my previous high volume pump with stock spring. Is this going to cause gaskets to fail or cause other problems for my engine? Do I need to reduce it?

Is the 80 psi cold or hot?

Hot accelerating.

It is possible your distributor was not totally secure and moved on you.

I doubt a Cloys double roller would stretch enough for you to notice even at 40k miles. Disconnect your coil wire. Take the distributor cap off. Turn the engine by hand clockwise slightly until you notice the distributor rotor move. Mark the location of the rotor tip and the harmonic damper. Turn the crank the opposite direction and see how far it moves before the rotor starts moving. If you see movement almost immediately you do not have a timing chain issue.

Check your valve lash.

If you do not have any significant lash adjustments and your timing chain is good you may not have any real issue.

I would re-do the compression test, make sure the battery is charged, do the rear cylinders first. If you have access to the tooling a leak down test would not be a bad idea. If the rear cylinders are still low and you can't do a leak down test, do a "wet" test (tablespoon of oil in each) to see if it jumps up, if so that is a ring sealing issue.

I hope for your sake the distributor just moved and the only damage was to your shorts.

-Michael

A little on the high side but okay. Should be idling around 35-40. Don't want too much higher in that you begin to wash the bearings.

I've always used 20/50, would going with a lighter oil decrease the oil pressure and be better in general?

I wouldn't be afraid to go a slight bit lighter on the wt. EDIT with more thought YES I would go lighter

Do we know what the bearing clearances are? I assume you are running some type of zinc additive.

OK, so if ligher weight oil then 20/50, which one? 10/30?

Dart4forte, I have o idea on the bearing clearances. The engine was last rebuilt in 2003...

@68cuda440, I tried what you said. turned the motor one way, then the other watching the distributor rotor. On turning it back the reverse direction, the cap did not move initially. I didn't mark it but I can turn the crank a bit before the rotor moves at all. So I guessing it looks like the chain is loose.

[quote=]OK, so if ligher weight oil then 20/50, which one? 10/30?

On turning it back the reverse direction, the cap did not move initially. I didn't mark it but I can turn the crank a bit before the rotor moves at all. So I guessing it looks like the chain is loose. [/quote] I ain't an oil guy so I have no valid input but first I'd research & see if a straight wt or a multi is the best way to go. On the slop see how many degrees of play you get on the dampener AND there is/can be slop in the chain/gears and in the dist lower tang/intergear slot that it fits into & both need to be checked/dealt with as needed and they both add up in what you see at the rotor for movement with the crank being turned