I started my car over the weekend to move it out of the shop. As soon as it started I heard a horrendous banging within the engine. It sounded like a hammer hitting the block. I immediately shut it down, and just got the chance last night to dig into the engine.

Last night I pulled my just re-worked aluminum heads off my newly rebuilt motor with less than 1,000 miles on it to find that someone thought it would be cute to put a ball bearing into the engine. The head has cracked the combustion chamber and was full of water from the cooling system, the piston has several deep indentions, and is cracked across the top between two of the indentions.

I work at a transmission shop, and I have had a lot of customers walking around the car and checking it out, but I never suspected that someone would be so low. The ball that I pried out of the top of my piston is a transmission check ball. So either someone who works here did it, or a customer picked it up from somewhere in the shop and did it. There is no chance that this was an accident as the air cleaner was still on the car when all of this happened. The last time I started the car was about a month ago. So since that time, someone picked up the air cleaner (not bolted on, just sitting in place) and dropped at least one check-ball into the carburetor. I have not pulled the other head off yet to see if there is any other debris on that side of the motor.

The engine I can repair. That is not that big a deal. The lack of understanding, or trust of my fellow human beings, that is what has taken the biggest hit.

I don't understand how someone can justify doing something like that to someone else's car/property.

I tell you after all of the hard work & cash I have put into building this motor to have someone do something senseless like this really takes the wind right out of my sails.

I hope that everyone that reads this at least walks away with the understanding that maybe you should be a little more careful about who you let around your car. There are DEFINITELY people out there that are jealous enough to want to destroy your stuff, just because they can.

One more step towards complete moral decay of society. It's a slippery slope and we are skating our way to damnation.

In closing, does anyone know a place in Houston, TX that can weld aluminum heads? I think it can be saved with a little welding, and then decking.

There is a place in Houston I would check. It is in North Houston and is called Gibson's heliarc welding if I remember correctly. I-45 and West Mount Houston area if I recall, it was many years ago.

Go69, I feel your pain man.:mad: Being it was a tranny check ball you found, and the fact that it was at work, I'll bet someone at work did it and they'll slip and tell someone. I don't feel that a customer would or could do it without someone seeing. A person (I use the term loosely) at work would have a better idea of what they're doing, and when they could " get away" with it.

Good luck with your motor and the "hunt for the saboteur".:angry:

Sorry you have to deal with someones stupidity.......I would also have the rod in that cyl. checked to make sure it didn't get bent..... if it is use it to beat whoever did this when you find out who it is

Man, this is very disturbing! It definitely has to be a co-worker who put that in there. It would likely be someone who was able to spend a bit of time at your car alone without being seen. This might include someone who stayed late one night, or who came in early etc. It may be tricky to find out who did it, but if you do discover who it is, I hope you find where they live and give their home a spray paint job. I hope it isn't someone in a supervisory position who sabotaged your engine, that would make me even more sick.

If you have comprehensive insurance on the car, I'd get the cops involved and file a comp claim. Comp covers vandalism, and I don't think that coverage is limited to outer body only. It would, for example, cover an interior that's been slashed, so I'd think it would cover a check ball dropped in the motor.