hacker-pschorr

This was a suprise - car stared very hard, died. Started it again, died. Started it a third time, gave it some gas - heard a howling noise, oil pressure at zero - smoke coming from the motor.

Luckily the amount if time I ran my car like this was very minimal. Smoke was the timing belt being stripped of its teeth.

Pics speak 1,000 words:

sublimate

My guess is a foreign object got in there. Never seen one fail like that on its own.

aircooler

Hacker, that's ****ty man

Big Dave

Certainly seems like something is stuck on one of the teeth, but I don't see material missing from the gear. Have you pulled it out to examine the particle?

hacker-pschorr

The part stuck in the teeth is from the little thin piece that runs along the gear on the upper right side (in the last picture)

WICruiser

I don't want to make this worse than it is, but how long is "minimal"? Zero oil pressure is never a good thing.

The next question is what else made it through the pump into the oiling system before the pump seized?

Good luck, let us know what you find.

Bill Ball

Argh! Hacker, you seem to be taking this very philosophically. I would be throwing things.

hacker-pschorr

These questons have been going around my head for a while. How long is minimal here? 2-3 seconds each try - I tried 3 times. It didn't take long for my brian to realize something was wrong and turn the key.

I have a huge gamble here. Put in a new pump and pray that anything that "made it through" was caught in the filter.

-or-

Yank the motor and rebuild.

I have a 5.0 S4 engine waiting for a rebuild to go in. I'm thinking about putting in a pump (used ones are a plenty from the many torn down motors between "the group") and drive it. If it gets worse and tears apart the block - speeds up the 5.0 upgrade project. I know to some this is a very stupid way of looking at it - either way this motor is eventually coming out to never be used again (I have some local 4.7 engines I can buy cheap). So if I bolt this together I can at least drive the car and pray nothing worse happens or pull the car off the road for the second year in a row.

If I do pull the car off the road - I can transfer the blower from my 81 to my 79 track car

Oh the decisons.

hacker-pschorr

You should have been here about 6:30PM.

Lorelei was hiding behind the garage.

Tim Murphy

And Erik wasn't taking calls.

Bill Ball

Considering this looks catastrophic, no real wear, no grunge, just a couple of wedged pieces of the pump housing, teeth look good, I would think you could repair this without a lot of fuss. Is their anything in the pump that didn't originate there? Pull the filter for an autopsy and drain the oil and look for anything else. Flush the pump outlet. Pull the oil lines and the pressure relief valve to drain them and look for stuff. I doesn't sound like the car actually ran at all or at least not more than a couple of seconds when you gave it some gas. If all is clean on the oil autopsy, install new pump, maybe use a one fill flush and let her rip. I can see how one must think foreign body (where is it now?).

mark kibort

Not good! But, you are handling it well.

I agree with bill. put the new pump on and clean out the system best you can and have at it. question is , what could have gotten past the filter to the pump? (at least i think thats the path the oil takes) in any event, i think its worth a chance of repair, since its not that hard to replace the pump and after you check the filter what comes out of the pan, off you go! Heck, i was RACING with up to 7 cam sprocket teeth in my pan, and didnt have any issues. still, i think there are 2 teeth floating around as we speak! (and i have no clue where they are, two oil changes later!)

MK

Bill51sdr

It appears the piece in the teeth came from the pump, as Erik stated. If you look hard enough at the last picture, you can see where it broke off. Therefore, nothing appears to have "got by the pump". I would install a new pump, drain/inspect the oil and filter, and if nothing more is found feel good about using that engine again for the time being. JMHO.

T_MaX

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the oil come up from the pan, than through the oil pump, than into the oil filter?

If I am correct, I would clean all passages from the pump to the filter (including oil cooler lines).

Drain oil and inspect, cut your oil filter apart with a chisel and tin snips and see what you can find in there!

It may not be as bad as it looks!

C.F.

ONLY IF the piece that broke off is complete & not missing any little bits.
If complete you could be ok. (see finally below)

If missing a bit , is the filter before or after the pump, is MK or Tmax right ! (its always after on older American V8's)

If the filter is after the pump, does it have a filter bypass system ? eg. if the filter was blocked , oil is diverted straight into the oil ways ,obvoisly no oil pressure in this case so so not applicable, just trying to add to the total picture of maybe's

Finally, what caused the piece to break off ? another foreign body entering the pump ?

Hacker , good luck on what ever path you choose