I am helping a friend fix his 69 RS Camaro with a 427 (its the "holy grail" of Camaros wish I could post a pic). Its a street/strip car and should run low 10's. Anyway this is the scoop.

The engine is a 69 casting 12:1 427 with a crower solid roller cam and lifters. Heavily modified "roval" semi-closed chamber GM iron heads.

Anyway, his full roller rockers came unglued (hammered the fulcrum bearings out) and needle bearings from two rockers went into the engine. I managed to recover 95% of the bearings with a magnet (I counted the parts). I got 21 of 22 needle bearings from one rocker and a pile of bearing pieces the same size from the other rocker. Bearings from one of the two rockers disintegrated so it was difficult to tell for sure if we had recovered every tiny piece of bearing.

We did cut open the oil filter and found small bits of pulverized bearing and aluminum from the rocker body. The filter bypass is plugged so I do not think anything could possibly have got past the filter and into the oil journals. Oil pressure was normal.

Any suggestions?

Eric you can flush the motor dowm with kerosene.

I would pull the intake and leave out the oil pan plug or better yet; pull the pan because you`ll probably need to change out the oil pump.

Take a bucket of the kero and pour it down through the motor I guess if you left the pan on you could run it through a paint filter or something, that way you`ll have peace of mind knowing you have all the debris accounted for, but the pump will need to be checked out no matter.

Get a new oil pump, with a plugged bypass that is usually the only thing you lose. Any good solvent will work but be very carefull to get everything out. Figure out why the rocker broke. Normally they give little trouble even when pushed to extreme limits if everything is right.

Eric,
Does he run alot of lash, or tight lash?

Kerosine or Desil. They are a bit more oily and less likely to dry out a rod bearing as you flush the motor than say naptha or other solvents.

-dnult

Thanks guys.

Oger, The rocker arms came apart because the wrong poly-lock nuts were used. The nuts were too short so the points on the hex heads hit the top of a couple rocker arms (depended on the whether the flats of the nut or the points were closest to the rocker arm body). Don't know how this could have been overlooked during assembly, but it was . . .

I'm wondering if the metal in the filter is actually bits of aluminum from where the poly locks were grinding on the rocker arm body? I better get a magnet and see . . .

I think pulling the intake, oil pan and replacing the pump is a good idea, along with a healthy flush with kerosene. Unfortunately, pulling the oil pan is out of the question until winter since pulling the oil pan means pulling the motor with this car. The owner is fired up about getting to the Woodward Dream Cruise in a few weeks . . . I hope he doesn't get in a rush.

How can we tell if the oil pump may have been damaged without taking it apart? Just run it and watch oil pressure closely?

ps. He's pretty careful about keeping the lash right at .022"I, .024"E as David Crower had recommended.

Does anyone know for SURE whether you DO or DO NOT have to pull the motor on a 427 Camaro to get the oil pan out?

He should definately pull the pan and replace the oil pump...I had a roller lifter go bad and the needle bearing pieces really tore the pump gears and housing up internally.

He's taking a real big risk if he chooses to cut corners and not pull the pan and fix the problem the right way. Situations like this are no time to be in a rush...otherwise more engine damage could result later on and hurt the crank/rods, etc.

BTW, I even found small crushed pieces of needle bearings imbedded in the piston skirts which scratched up the cylinder walls pretty good. Depending on how quickly he found the problem...he may find the same thing upon tear down.

i would personally tear down the motor. just as slowazz points out, that steel goes everywhere, and is immediatly embedded in anything aluminum it comes in contact with, i.e. pistons, resulting a trashed bores. also if any did make it to the bearings, it will also do a number on the crank. so how much money is in the motor, is it worth it to him to roll the dice and see if he gets lucky? i know the feeling about losing the camaro during summer, but if the debris is widespread, it could get costly. if it were mine, it would come apart, after all, if he gets the parts to freshen it up, he should be able to do it all in a week easy, with your help of course ;) . worst case scenario if he tears it down is everything is fine, you know what the worst case could be if he leaves it and its not o.k. :mad: .just my .02, good luck to him!

Pull the pan and look at the pump. Remember there is a bypass that will open and if it did, then there may be metal that got around the filter. Thus, when the pan is off to look at the pump, I would pull some caps and check main/rod bearings too. You can also look at the cylinder walls and see if they are scratched. It is no fun, but some checking now may save a lot of grief later if a motor is lost.

Pull the engine!!!! you/He WILL be sorry if you dont. scroll down and read my post "hard luck or stupidity"

Best wishes I hope you dont travel down the path I took.

Milan

Oldani, the bypass is plugged and there is no bypass inside the filter so I'm certain that nothing could have got past the oil filter.

We're going to try getting the pan off Saturday without pulling the engine - wonder how high I'll have to hoist it up :rolleyes:

Will follow up and let you guys know how it turns out when we're done.

Just pull the engine...much easier IMO. To lift the engine, you still need to disconnect the motor mounts, headers, coolant & rad hoses, etc., etc., etc. The only thing your saving is unbolting the converter and bellhousing bolts. It's much easier to determine the damage with the engine on a stand upside down...also easier to install pan gaskets that way graemlins/thumbsup.gif .

good luck, hope for the best

as a side note eric;
you wont be able to retrieve aluminum with a magnet as it is a non-magnetic alloy