pics of my damaged engine parts

Kevin Leitem

Registered User
Finally pulled the engine out today and got it all torn down. Found a bunch of messed up parts. I pulled the intake off and found all the lifters on the drivers side twisted in their bores, all 3 link bars were bent with one unattached. Thought it was too odd for all the lifters on one side messed up but the other side was fine. Then I took off the drivers head and found all three pistons had the same damage where the intake valve hit the piston. Now I was really confused. It all made sense after I removed the timing cover. The cam bolt came loose and backed out the whole way! That allowed the cam to walk backwards in the block enough to allow the lifters to actually ride the lobe next to them. Thankfully that just happened on one side.

But still excited that it still ran 10.5 with all of that going on! Can't wait till spring!
 

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I thought my junk was ugly....but you got me beat a mile.....can't wait to see it make a clean pass.....Dan
 
Finally pulled the engine out today and got it all torn down. Found a bunch of messed up parts. I pulled the intake off and found all the lifters on the drivers side twisted in their bores, all 3 link bars were bent with one unattached. Thought it was too odd for all the lifters on one side messed up but the other side was fine. Then I took off the drivers head and found all three pistons had the same damage where the intake valve hit the piston. Now I was really confused. It all made sense after I removed the timing cover. The cam bolt came loose and backed out the whole way! That allowed the cam to walk backwards in the block enough to allow the lifters to actually ride the lobe next to them. Thankfully that just happened on one side.

But still excited that it still ran 10.5 with all of that going on! Can't wait till spring!

Wow ! 10.5 is great for that mess. Looking forward to seeing what it does running on all the cylinders.

David
 
Do you recall if you used any type of thread locker on the cam bolt during assembly?

ouch is all you can say.
 
Do you recall if you used any type of thread locker on the cam bolt during assembly?

ouch is all you can say.

I always do, but I admit I don't see any signs of it on the bolt, but it could have been washed away from the oil since it wasn't threaded in any more
 
I had the same thing happen on a fresh engine damage was not as severe but still needed a rebuild, bolt ruptured the timing cover and coolant entered the engine and made milk shake, I was about 600 miles away from home.
 
didn't even look at my cover. yep, bolt went through it!! fortunately since i have a remote water pump it kept the water out of the oil
 
had the same over here.

My son Nasty V6 had the same thing happen a week before the shoot out a couple of years ago. The bolt went thru the front cover and that is how we found his mess. We wound up putting a complete engine in that time.. Good luck and maybe this is something that we all should keep an eye on. Rich
 
anyone with thoughts on avoiding such a failure in the future? Is the bolt too small? should some more severe method be used to retain it? One thought is because the cam often has oil on it, are folks cleaning the thread bore for the bolt completely, and cleaning the bolt itself completely before applying the thread locker? If not, the thread locker may be ineffective due to oil. A thought.
 
don't forget the obvious one.......don't forget to tighten the bolt:).

We rebuilt sarah's engine and had it back together just in time for the shootout, tuned it, ran it all day 9-10 passes the whole nine yards this year. Unloading it from the trailer once we got home sounded like the engine was making noise. Pulled the engine, turned out the flexplate bolts had worked their way loose from the engine. No other problems we could find. I can swear I remember torquing them to spec. Like DD said, maybe I overtorqued them and stretched them too far and they came loose.
Needless to say, we used locktite with new bolts and flexplate. Sometimes ~~~~ happens.

chris
 
anyone with thoughts on avoiding such a failure in the future? Is the bolt too small? should some more severe method be used to retain it? One thought is because the cam often has oil on it, are folks cleaning the thread bore for the bolt completely, and cleaning the bolt itself completely before applying the thread locker? If not, the thread locker may be ineffective due to oil. A thought.

I clean the bore and the bolt of oil before I lock tite and install.
 
tried that already

anyone with thoughts on avoiding such a failure in the future? Is the bolt too small? should some more severe method be used to retain it? One thought is because the cam often has oil on it, are folks cleaning the thread bore for the bolt completely, and cleaning the bolt itself completely before applying the thread locker? If not, the thread locker may be ineffective due to oil. A thought.

When Scott's engine went down it had a new cam & bolt put in it . These were all new parts and yet it still walked out. Someone smarter than me might chime in on this idea. Does some engines build some kind of harmonics when they run?? This is just some thing that has come up in talking around??.. Not sure if this is even something to look at or if the other guy was smoking something again....Rich
 
When Scott's engine went down it had a new cam & bolt put in it . These were all new parts and yet it still walked out. Someone smarter than me might chime in on this idea. Does some engines build some kind of harmonics when they run?? This is just some thing that has come up in talking around??.. Not sure if this is even something to look at or if the other guy was smoking something again....Rich

I think mine was from my bhj balance not having a 26 after tdc mark, but having a 90 after tdc mark. Were I had it for a while before I figured it out and the engine was detonating very bad.
 
I started thinking if while I have the top half of the engine off, if I should just pull the heads off and put them on myself being as Im not sure who did it, and checking that the cam bolt is locked in good..
 
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