The other day my brother calls me on the cell phone and says he needs me to come get him with the trailer. He says he lost oil pressure while crusing down the road, then shut the car down.
We pull the blower off the car (needed to get the dist out), pull the distributor, and the oil pump shaft looks like a corkscrew. I welded a rod to one end, slipped it into the oil pump and it wouldn't budge.
He pulled the pan off and pulled the pump out. We took it apart and were amazed at what we found. There was a tiny 3/8" long piece of wire wheel jammed in the gears. It acutally indented itself into each gear. He is guessing it may be from when he was cleaning the outside of the block to paint it before the motor went in. This was a year and a half ago!
He bought a new pump and a motorsport shaft, and put it all together and all is well. The car has 10psi more oil pressure at all times, and even sounds better.
There was one more thing that was baffling. We had both ends of the oil pump shaft (the one end broke off in the pump). When he dropped the pan, while cleaning it out he found a 3RD end of a corkscrewed oil pump shaft! Now keep in mind that this is the second motor in this car (he replaced the motor that was in it when he bought it) and that he swapped the pan over from the first motor. We are completely baffled as to where this 3rd piece came from, but it was in there. Strange stuff!!
The moral of this story is to be extra carefull when you have an open motor. Even thought his current motor was built already, and he had taped off all the ports and open ends, this piece of wire wheel still managed to get in there.
We pull the blower off the car (needed to get the dist out), pull the distributor, and the oil pump shaft looks like a corkscrew. I welded a rod to one end, slipped it into the oil pump and it wouldn't budge.
He pulled the pan off and pulled the pump out. We took it apart and were amazed at what we found. There was a tiny 3/8" long piece of wire wheel jammed in the gears. It acutally indented itself into each gear. He is guessing it may be from when he was cleaning the outside of the block to paint it before the motor went in. This was a year and a half ago!
He bought a new pump and a motorsport shaft, and put it all together and all is well. The car has 10psi more oil pressure at all times, and even sounds better.
There was one more thing that was baffling. We had both ends of the oil pump shaft (the one end broke off in the pump). When he dropped the pan, while cleaning it out he found a 3RD end of a corkscrewed oil pump shaft! Now keep in mind that this is the second motor in this car (he replaced the motor that was in it when he bought it) and that he swapped the pan over from the first motor. We are completely baffled as to where this 3rd piece came from, but it was in there. Strange stuff!!
The moral of this story is to be extra carefull when you have an open motor. Even thought his current motor was built already, and he had taped off all the ports and open ends, this piece of wire wheel still managed to get in there.