Posted by Travis on Tuesday, February 08, 2005 at 10:07PM :
In Reply to: losing oil pressure 318 la posted by RICK RATTLER on Tuesday, February 08, 2005 at 12:54PM :
OK If I read this right the engine has a knock. That is most likey the cause of the low oil pressure. If its a hard knock like a rod not a tick like valvetrain noise. Plastic gage is not reliable it will lie to you. Dont get me wrong its better than nothing. I would say it sounds like it took out a rod bearing. As for the cam being "off" Ill take that as missalinment. That is pretty commen in about all makes of blocks. Some are worse than others chryslers and FE ford are the worst. Ive seen 2 blocks in my all most 20 years of building engines that had a spun or chewed up bearing. Most of the time you will put cam bearings in and slide a cam in and it wont turn. This is due to misalinment. When the block was new it was straight. After time the block heated up and cooled down many times over its life and is no longer stright. To fix it the right way you would have to rebore the cam tunnel and put in larger odd cam bearings. Most shops dont have this type of equipment plus the fact it would be cost prohibitive and most of all bearing companys dont make oversized cam bearings. So the way to fix that problem is to make a cutter cam with just an old cam that has a slightly diagnol cut in the journal. You turn it as you slide it in and it will nicely shave the bearing so the cam will fit. Then you go back using some fine emry cloth or a neat flapper wheel like I have and polish it out.
Believe me there are some 50,000 dollar HEMIS out there that have to do that every time they freshen up a engine.
So the moral to my long winded story is that a cam can damn near be pounded in and still give long service life with no problems. That is due to a cam bearing is made out of babbit. That makes it able to move around and conform itself.
So look for something else. If its been knocking you will have to take it apart to definatly find whats wrong.
On a different note do your self a favor and have it balanced. The engine will run smoother and last longer too.
One last thing watch the machine shop closley there are a lot of hacks out there. They give guys like me a bad name. They make it hard to get custmers to belive what you tell them because theyve been misled so much.
Travis