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Your builder needs to be updated about oil. He must be thinking Rotella still has Zinc in it. Although Rotella was the last company to remove Zinc from its product years ago. Looking at the drain plug, I think its too late to add Zinc. Looks like you have some cam lobes going south maybe, not good. Cut open your filter. I would not even think about starting an engine with a drain plug looking like that, sorry.
Your builder needs to be updated about oil. He must be thinking Rotella still has Zinc in it. Although Rotella was the last company to remove Zinc from its product years ago. Looking at the drain plug, I think its too late to add Zinc. Looks like you have some cam lobes going south maybe, not good. Cut open your filter. I would not even think about starting an engine with a drain plug looking like that, sorry.
The oil that was in the car was Castrol High Mileage with a pint of Lucas ZDDP in it.
So if that is the case the ZDDP additive didn't work.
I saved the filter from this oil change so I can cut it open.
Do you cut it open top to bottom or across the center to see what the filter has in it?
You cut it at the bottom where the case meets the flange. That metal comes from valve train wear, mostly valve springs from not being debured. Not saying you don't have cam wear, but it will be interesting to see what your builder has on the bottom of those springs.
You cut it at the bottom where the case meets the flange. That metal comes from valve train wear, mostly valve springs from not being debured. Not saying you don't have cam wear, but it will be interesting to see what your builder has on the bottom of those springs.
Do you mean the valve springs are turning in the head and creating the iron filings?
I don't believe I have ever seen a valve spring rotate on a running engine. I would think if it did, there would be less than 50 lbs of closed pressure. But thats another story.
Even brand new aluminum heads may not have valvespring shims. That spring shouldn't be going anywhere but up & down. There is no rhyme or reason for a spring to rotate.
Shims are used to insure that each and every valvespring height is the same. This measurement is done with a valvespring height micrometer ($50). The highest height springs are then shimmed accordingly to match the shorter units.
Do you own a compression tester MR. Woodruff? I have yet to see any results of a "wet test", but I did see the dry test. Of the 90 some hits your question received, it was not until the 44th post did someone catch that about a wet test. Its an age-old test that still reveals a lot about piston ring seal.
Pull all the plugs, battery fully charged, a squirt of 30 wt oil in plug hole, 5-6 pumps of the piston, record result, compare to dry test. I believe you are allowed no more than 20 lb differential between wet & dry test, but I could be wrong.
Do you own a compression tester MR. Woodruff? I have yet to see any results of a "wet test", but I did see the dry test. Of the 90 some hits your question received, it was not until the 44th post did someone catch that about a wet test. Its an age-old test that still reveals a lot about piston ring seal.
Pull all the plugs, battery fully charged, a squirt of 30 wt oil in plug hole, 5-6 pumps of the piston, record result, compare to dry test. I believe you are allowed no more than 20 lb differential between wet & dry test, but I could be wrong.
Thanks for the info. I am going to talk to the engine builder later this morning and will discuss that with him.
Several of the posts thought that 120 per cylinder was low for the dry test. I thought so too since it just has the mild L82 cam in it.
I will suggest the wet test as a next step to see what happens.
Thanks again for you input.
Last edited by LenWoodruff; 09-05-2017 at 09:28 AM.
Between the low cranking compression, oil on the back of the valves, and iron on the drain plug I'm not sure there's much more fact-finding necessary. Seems like the motor needs to come out.
Between the low cranking compression, oil on the back of the valves, and iron on the drain plug I'm not sure there's much more fact-finding necessary. Seems like the motor needs to come out.
I hope not but it may end up that way.
Just to check the iron filings after the oil change I drove it about 90 Miles.
I took out the old magnetic drain plug and put in a new magnetic drain plug.
The old one didn't have any iron filings I could see on it.
Last edited by LenWoodruff; 09-05-2017 at 12:22 PM.
WOW, huge improvement! How did that happen? I don't know what you're selling Mr. Woodruff but put me down for two cases.
Well, with fall coming you have some time to think about how far you want to tear down the engine. Maybe its not the rings or cam lobes after all.
WOW, huge improvement! How did that happen? I don't know what you're selling Mr. Woodruff but put me down for two cases.
Well, with fall coming you have some time to think about how far you want to tear down the engine. Maybe its not the rings or cam lobes after all.
I am not sure. I will say that I am embarrassed to say I didn't clean the magnetic drain plug when I changed the oil at 500 miles after the rebuild.
The oil I changed back to is the Rotella T5 10w-30 Synthetic Blend. It does seam to use less oil after 90 miles than the Castrol 10w-40 synthetic blend I was using before.
I may change the plugs to see how much oil is still getting to them and the intake valves.
Its not my car, its yours but, I sure would like to see you get away from modern day, high annual mileage syn oil and go back to mineral oils with zinc. Synthetics are great for people driving 12-20,000 miles a yr with new modern engine gaskets, but have no place for seldom driven classics with cork gaskets (just my humble opinion).
If you like to read & research, check into why zinc was introduced in the 1940s and why it was removed by the Feds in the 2000s. The lack of zinc in syn oils maybe part of the reason for your abnormal wear / metal shavings. Especially during break-in of the piston rings. (again, just my opinion)
If you like to read & research, check into why zinc was introduced in the 1940s and why it was removed by the Feds in the 2000s. The lack of zinc in syn oils maybe part of the reason for your abnormal wear / metal shavings. Especially during break-in of the piston rings. (again, just my opinion)
Zink/ZDDP protects flat tappet cams. AFAIK it does nothing for other parts of the engine.
ZDDP is drastically reduced in any oil meeting the API SN standard, doesn't matter if it's synthetic or not. If it meets API SN it has very little ZDDP. This was done to protect catalytic converters as they have reduced life due to ZDDP deposits.
If you have a roller cam the lack of ZDDP doesn't matter, you can run synthetic or conventional API SN. With a flat tappet cam you can either run API SN + ZDDP additive, look for an older API SM oil, or take your chances.
Actually zwede, Zinc was introduced to reduce "bearing" surface wear. Long before the flat tappet was around. I believe it was Henry Ford himself that asked his engineers to find something to protect bearing surfaces. Customers complained that cam bearings, rod bearings and mains prematurely failed at around 3,000 miles.
And yes, zinc ruined the cats but not until 130,000 miles. Our Govt wanted longer mileage on the cats knowing that people would just trash can them.
Zinc has made a comeback in todays oils but not so much in the "off-the-shelf" brands. Lucas, Edelbrock, Brad Penn to name a few can be had through mail-order places like Summit, loaded w/ zinc.
Next is the research that has shown Syn oil is not compatable with older classic gaskets. But that's another story.
I have wiped a flat tappet camshaft because of using off-the-shelf-oil. I didn't know about the zinc removal. Never again. Lucas Classic Hot Rod Oil w/zinc from now on.
09-03-2017, 12:32 PM
