Metal In Engine After Cam Break In

[65Fury440]

Helping a friend with a 361.
Engine supposed to be rebuilt. Spun cam with lifters on it, seen they all spun.
Broke the cam in, cut the oil filter, there was a lot of metal in there. Metal is chunky, non magnetic, silver.

Put a permanent cleanable oil filter on it, ran it a while, pictures show what is in it.
No strange noises, 35 PSI at idle hot.

Pulled valve covers, aluminum rockers all appear to be intact, right around .030 side play. No galling I can notice.

Where should I look next? My thought was to pull the pan and pop some main caps off, the material is really coarse though, not like I'd expect bearing material to be like.

 

[Davea Lux]

The metal in the filter is pretty big to be bearing material unless there is a catastrophic failure underway. It also does not appear to be metal coming off the new camshaft as that would be smaller and magnetic. I would pull the rockers and check the shafts to be sure they were properly installed, if someone put the shafts in upside down, the rockers will not be oiling. You also might want to take a bore scope and check each cylinder for scoring from a failing piston, with the amount of metal in you filter, I would suspect the engine would be knocking if a piston was throwing that much metal. If you pull the pan, check the thrust surface of the main bearing with the thrust on the sides, an improperly finished crank has been known to eat the thrust bearing. The engine will have lots of crank end play if that has happened.

Dave

 

[stubs300]

Helping a friend with a 361.
Engine supposed to be rebuilt. Spun cam with lifters on it, seen they all spun.
Broke the cam in, cut the oil filter, there was a lot of metal in there. Metal is chunky, non magnetic, silver.

Did a shop build this or your friend? How clean did the shop clean it if they did it? Did your buddy follow up & clean before build if he did it? This looks like it's more like machining material than just break in material. I'm wondering how clean the whole block was before the start of rebuild by whomever? Good Luck

 

[73Coupe]

Good point Stubs, that makes sense.

I don't think there's anything to do but pull the whole thing out and disassemble at this point. Don't run it anymore with all that crap in there. It's all over the crankcase and there's no way to clean it without complete disassembly.

 

[Davea Lux]

Good point Stubs, that makes sense.

I don't think there's anything to do but pull the whole thing out and disassemble at this point. Don't run it anymore with all that crap in there. It's all over the crankcase and there's no way to clean it without complete disassembly.

With that amount of metal in the filter, you will want to be sure and inspect the gears on the oil pump as well.

Dave

 

[jake]

Did you cut the filter with a hacksaw?

 

[1970FuryConv]

Did you cut the filter with a hacksaw?

Look like the filter is attached to a base that fastens to the outer case, given threads on both.

 

[1970cat]

if it's aftermarket, check the distributor drive gear.

 

[65sporty]

As mentioned above I would check the rocker shafts. If they are ok, I would pull the oil pan and look for some sign. If I didn't find anything, then pull it and totally disassemble it.

 

[67Monaco]

Did a shop build this or your friend? How clean did the shop clean it if they did it? Did your buddy follow up & clean before build if he did it? This looks like it's more like machining material than just break in material. I'm wondering how clean the whole block was before the start of rebuild by whomever? Good Luck

I agree, that's swarf.

 

[hemi71x]

I agree, that's swarf.

What's swarf??
Never heard that before.


swarf
/swôrf/
Learn to pronounce

noun

1. fine chips or filings of stone, metal, or other material produced by a machining operation.
   "a curl of metal swarf"

Well, learn something new, every day.
Showed up on GOOGLE.

 

[LeBaron1973]

Whatever you call it, there shouldn't be any inside the engine. Hope it turns out ok.

 

[70bigblockdodge]

Run it again see what you get. Looks like a piston issue. Why aluminum rockers on a 361?
Why a 361?

 

[commando1]

I'm agreeing with the above who think it's shrapnel left over from machining followed up by a piss-poor cleanup afterwards.
Are the heads aluminum?

 

[stubs300]

I agree, that's swarf.

Word of the day! My day's not wasted, I learned a new word, cool!

 

[70bigblockdodge]

I only know the word because I have hauled it.

 

[73Coupe]

At my buddy's machine shop, his shop vac gets full of these shavings and becomes very heavy. The filter remains clean though - no dust!
The hose gets coated with oil and thus attracts the "swarf", and becomes heavy and clogged as well.

 

[65Fury440]

Thanks for all the responses.
Sorry so slow, been slammed at work.
I owned this car back in 2013-14,it was passed around, and some friends of friends bought the car. Guy bought it for his wife, he has health issues, doesn't know much about cars.
The Poly was tired, and the current owner had another guy tell him go big block, started the swap. Then said guy got in a car wreck and is now not able to do the work.
The 361 looks like it got a new cam, lifters, rockers, aluminum intake, new Holley carb. Just looking at the outside, and by the fact that the painted turquoise fuel pump was no good, I have doubts. The lifter valley and heads are clean, so maybe it is.
The hood was off the car for a year, under a canopy tent in FL, getting rained on, with no valley tray on the car, but the intake was bolted up. Guess they forgot the valley pan? I dunno. At least the combustion chambers were sealed.
I drained a couple quarts of water out of the pan. Poured fuel oil down the valley until all the water and milky oil was gone.
At that point, I told them motor was junk, but, it was pretty close to firing up, and we just fired it up to see what happened.
Engine started right up, no huge amounts of smoke, minimal blow by, no knocking. Ran it 20 minutes, cut open the first oil filter, noticed a lot of little garbage, and some of the aluminum? specks. Have been starting it and running it a bit, setting the carb etc, it probably ran it about 30 mins and checked that screen, as shown it the pics.
I am trying to be a nice guy to get this thing running, but, it is a catastrophe. Not just the condition of the engine, there are tons of missing parts, motor needs to be raised, trans cable is broken, kickdown wrong, brake master full of water, etc etc etc.
I am going to finish up connecting everything to make it drive, if this thing eats itself, they are going to have to take it to a shop and have it pulled and rebuilt.
Sad part is, they could have put a 318/360 in it and had it running in a couple days, and been driving the wheels off.
I am thinking those bits are leftover machine junk, or a piston going away. It's going to clean itself out or puke itself.

 

[stubs300]

I only know the word because I have hauled it.

Well at least you don't have a bad case of omphaloskepsis!

Thanks for all the responses.
Sorry so slow, been slammed at work.
I owned this car back in 2013-14,it was passed around, and some friends of friends bought the car. Guy bought it for his wife, he has health issues, doesn't know much about cars.
The Poly was tired, and the current owner had another guy tell him go big block, started the swap. Then said guy got in a car wreck and is now not able to do the work.
The 361 looks like it got a new cam, lifters, rockers, aluminum intake, new Holley carb. Just looking at the outside, and by the fact that the painted turquoise fuel pump was no good, I have doubts. The lifter valley and heads are clean, so maybe it is.
The hood was off the car for a year, under a canopy tent in FL, getting rained on, with no valley tray on the car, but the intake was bolted up. Guess they forgot the valley pan? I dunno. At least the combustion chambers were sealed.
I drained a couple quarts of water out of the pan. Poured fuel oil down the valley until all the water and milky oil was gone.
At that point, I told them motor was junk, but, it was pretty close to firing up, and we just fired it up to see what happened.
Engine started right up, no huge amounts of smoke, minimal blow by, no knocking. Ran it 20 minutes, cut open the first oil filter, noticed a lot of little garbage, and some of the aluminum? specks. Have been starting it and running it a bit, setting the carb etc, it probably ran it about 30 mins and checked that screen, as shown it the pics.
I am trying to be a nice guy to get this thing running, but, it is a catastrophe. Not just the condition of the engine, there are tons of missing parts, motor needs to be raised, trans cable is broken, kickdown wrong, brake master full of water, etc etc etc.
I am going to finish up connecting everything to make it drive, if this thing eats itself, they are going to have to take it to a shop and have it pulled and rebuilt.
Sad part is, they could have put a 318/360 in it and had it running in a couple days, and been driving the wheels off.
I am thinking those bits are leftover machine junk, or a piston going away. It's going to clean itself out or puke itself.

Judging by all this, I'd say take a deep breath, step back and start a new rebuild from square one all over again. Recycle what parts you can and all others new. Sad commentary all around! Good Luck

 

[70bigblockdodge]

Well at least you don't have a bad case of omphaloskepsis

Had to look that one up!