woe unto me!

[Harvey Tank]

after 8 years of labor of love, it all comes down to this.

I finished the restoration on my 50 PLY P20 yesterday. took it for a road test. everything was fine. oil pressure was good 55 lbs. temperature was running right at 165 deg. it was about 80 deg. here in the pacific north west. the car really handled good, then all of a sudden all heck broke lose under the hood. I blew my motor. it seized up. I had it towed home, put in the shop, closed the doors. and I went into mourning. I am kinda in the dumps right now guys so help me out here.

I haven't even been in my shop today. I will tear into it as soon as I get over my pity party. right now I need to just set back for a while.

4 years ago I rebuilt my 218. I used assembly lube and set the motor aside. then 2 years later I added oil, and started it up before I installed it in the car, every thing was fine. did I do wrong by letting the motor set for 2 years with just assembly lube in it?

what is your thoughts? what are some things I need to look for and things to do so this don't happen again.

[boxer_inv]

nooooooooooooooooooo!

I've never been through something like that and I can only try to begin to imagine how disheartened you are right now....

I can't give you any thoughts on what happened to your car (a mechanic I ain't) but I'll have my fingers crossed that its on the low end of the 'motordestructometer'.

In your favour...you'll be bombarded with kind suggestions and offers of assistance from the guru's here...

Good luck

Rob

[dezeldoc]

Well that sucks! seeing as how you started and it ran says one thing, but how long did you run it before you put it in the car? did you have a oil pressure gauge on it when you started it? Did you crank it over to get oil pressure before you started it? there are quite a few things that will cause it to seize up. how were the clearance on the bearings, piston to wall? you are going to need to tear it down to see what happened. I have left them longer than that with no problems. good luck with it and hope it did not ruin it beyond repair.

[John Mulders]

what a nightmere !

hope you get over the first shock quickly and get ready to get the engine running again.

With the engines being able to endure so much I would be surprised if this is caused by the 4 years waiting.

John

[55 Fargo]

My Dad had a 59 Ford , he sold it to my Uncle in around 1967 with well over a 100000 miles on it, it had a slight knock already. He told my Uncle you will need another engine right away, he didn't pull the engine, seized up right on a main drag in the city where I come from.

Sorry to hear for your engine problems, hopefully ytou can get out to the shop today and have a look......Fred

[JerseyHarold]

Sorry to hear about your misfortune.

If it was a bearing issue and didn't break anything inside the engine, there is a very good chance it's repairable.

Maybe the best thing to do is step away for a while and dig back into it after a few days or weeks with a clear head.

Harold

[PatS....]

I feel for you. Very disheartening for sure. Stepping away for a while is a good tactic.

But, it's a machine and machines break, so you really only have two choices. Say "that's it, I'm done" and sell as is, OR say "damn, that sucks" and repair it.

Not an easy choice but those are them.

Again, we all sure feel for you and would be there to help if we could.

[Harvey Tank]

I ran the motor on and off several times before installing it. maby 30 min. I dad have a oil guage, and temp. guage on it at that time. and did use plastic guage on all the rod and main bearings. hopefuly I just spun a rod bearing. and I torqued every thing per. manual spex.

[Don Coatney]

Sorry to hear it seized. Only way to find out why is disassembly. Post pictures when you get it apart so we can all learn from your experiance.

[Merle Coggins]

I would suspect that one of your oil passages is clogged up and prevented oil from getting where it needed to be. I believe I remember someone else here say that had a similar thing happen to a rebuilt engine.

I hope it's not too serious and you can get back out on the road soon.

Merle

[Young Ed]

I've seen this twice. Once with the engine thats now in my 46 pickup. It was rebuilt by a shop for dads 51 convert. Sat in the garage and then the chassis of the car for about 8 years. Dad and I took it for a test drive/shake down cruise about 2 weeks before we were supposed to go to the National POC meet in Iowa. By the time we returned from the 120mile round trip the oil pressure had dropped to very little at idle. So instead of going to the meet we spent the time installing a different rebuilt flathead that Dad had. Later on it turned out that some dirt had remained in the oil galley and came loose during the intial run and wiped out all the bearings. The other one was a guy in our region of the POC. He installed the front main bearing upsidedown and the oil hole didn't line up. He seized that one up. Had to have that bearing surface turned down again.

[james curl]

Glad to see that I am not the only one who installed the wrong front main shell in the block. I did that two years ago after driving 4600 miles to Reno, northen Californio and to Bonneville then home. Had to replace two piston pin bushings so did all six, then rod bearings, mains and rings, the line kept moving. Then after reminding myself that the shell with the hole needed to be rolled up into the block from under the car, installed the shell without a hole in the block. Engine never froze up, just knocked. All has been corrected now.

[Don Jordan]

I feel so at home here because there are guys that have done things just as stooopid as me.

Put in new rod bearings and put all the rod caps on backwards. It didn't want to turn over so me the genius I am had a friend pull the car. It fired right up and spun all the bearings and ruined the crank. Yet another lesson learned - the hard way.

ruth you are among friends - we know your pain.

[Harvey Tank]

I finely got up the nerve today to pull the motor and disassemble it and see what I have. I will keep you posted.

[Joe Flanagan]

I think you have a captive audience here. I can't wait to see what you find. I built mine almost seven years ago and it's been sitting since. I also used assembly lube. Just to put things in perspective, I just finished replacing the intake manifold gasket on my daughter's Nissan Altima. It was one hell of a difficult job. Everything is so tight and cramped you have to fight nearly every step of the way. So much crap had to come out of the car just to get to this gasket. The gasket costs about 15 bucks, by the way. The labor would have brought the total job to around a thousand, give or take. So consider yourself lucky that you'll have plenty of room and a fairly simple disassembly. I don't think it will be that bad.

[Oldguy48]

That's almost enough to make a grown man weep. I hope you find that the problem is something that can be repaired without too much trouble or expense. After years of work, for that to happen is tragic. Good luck, and keep us posted.

[Harvey Tank]

OK here it is guys! a buddy of mine and I pulled the engine to day. and found #3 rod bearing fused to to crank. #4 was a little scratched. all the rest were realy clean and looked good. main bearings were ok too.

the bearing is so far gone that I couldn't tell if it was installed wrong or not. meaning the oil hole in the right place.

so I am asumming that I must have installed it wrong. the rod bearing just flat didn't get oiled. I think it was just getting lubed with assembly lub. untell it went to pot. what do you all think? all that said.

correct me if I am not doing the right thing. tomorrow I am taking the crank and rods to the machine shop and start all over again. I only drove the car 10 miles. I would say that is not very good milage for theis wonderfull old flatties.

I except all responsibilities. like a post in the past that said for [give me for I have sinned]

I just hope my experence can help someone in the future.

check and double check, check and double check. and check it again.

I will post photos at next post. sorry I haven't finished with them yet.

Thanks guys you have been a great help.

[Harvey Tank]

photos of my disassembley.

[mackster]

so sorry to hear about your problems with the engine, thanks for sharing as I am sure it will help someone else not to make the same mistake. . .good luck with your rebuilt. I will be watching

[dezeldoc]

You might want to have the rods checked for straightness, them puppys got hot! i would also check the oil passages and the pump, make sure their is no scoring on the gears, case or end plate.

[Merle Coggins]

Rod bearings get their oil through the crankshaft. Even if you put the rod bearing shells in wrong, they still should have been OK. The hole in the upper shell is to send oil out the squirter hold to lube the wrist pin and cam lobes.

I suspect you have a blockage in the oil passage in your crank. It would be worth double checking before putting it all back together, providing they can save that crank. There should be a hole in the maing bearing journal that connects to the hole at the rod bearing journal.

Merle

[greg g]

Since these were neigboring rods, I gotta ask were the rods installed withthe offsets correct, did you have the roght rods on the correct journals. If you line them up piston down, and check the bearing end you will notice that there is more meat on onsid thanthe other, if three and four were installed with the offsets wrong, that is likely what caused the problem. Based on the looks of that one rod, I thinky you might want to look fro a new pair. Should be plenty of stock on the crank journals to take them to the next size or two if necessary, and yes there are a lot of older cars running around with standards on some journals and undersized on other. My uncle had a pontial straight 8 with mismatched pistons (they just repaired and bored the ones necessary) . If you go that route just make a note of it, maybe make a laminated card that gives the rebuild infor with the note that rods and mains are standard with the exception of 3 and 4 rods wheich are .030 under or whetever.

[Young Ed]

Another option is to have those ones spray welded and ground to match the others. I should have some rods if thats a 218.

[Harvey Tank]

thanks for responding to my scenario.

I am taking the rods, pistons, and crank to my local machine shop. [engine rebuilder] to check rod condition. don't you think I should have the crank reground so that all the journals would be the same? and the same with the rods. if I don't wouldn't I have a balancing issue. meaning 2 rods with over size bearings ,and the rest std.

[Young Ed]

The guy in our club who had one main upsidedown had just that one ground. I would really let the shop answer that question even though i don't think it would be an issue. Remember what you loose in crank material you gain in bearing.