I had a heads/cam package installed a few years ago by a vette shop in my area (so I will not be mentioning the shops name cuz I do not want this to turn into a pizzing match and get locked down).

yesterday morning driving home from GF house...downshift (MN6) jump on it to pass a car, hit about 4kRPM... let off gas aferward to decel..here a whining noise , I am only about 4 min from home, so limp home.

Oil leaking on garage floor after I shut car off, Dave (good buddy DPG) comes over , get the car up in the air,,,front seal is leaking... ok, pain in the *** to fix the crank pully seal, but we can do it..... next take a closer look.. crank pulley bolt is not even HAND TIGHT:ack :
Luckily, the pulley stayed on and there is no damage to the steer rack or marking at all like it rubbed.
Get the bolt out, come to find out, the original bolt was used instead of an ARP bolt like should have been used when my cam was installed
So, several trips to Napa, Autozone, Advanced Auto later, and several hundred buck in supplies later..... here I am.
We had everything apart and the bolt in, pulley on last night, but discovered I had a torn steering boot... could not get that part til this morning.
I'll post up pics of the pulley and bolt later. As far as I can tell, the engine is fine...and I never lost an oil pressure. The noise was obvisously coming from the belts and everything out of line.

I am very lucky and glad I was so close to home when this happened, and was able to get home safely, and not do any damage to the motor.

A huge thanks to DPG(Dave)and LBD(Len) for their help yesterday and today... I should have everything back together tomorrow.

Just needed to share this and get it off my chest. It's been a very long and challenging weekend to say the least!!

I should add that my car has never been to the track, only driven on the street, and the occasional spirited drive here and there.

 

Good thing you caught it. The obvious question that would be in my head is where else did they cut corners?

 

It does seem that a "Corvette" shop would know to replace that bolt.Are you sure it is not simply a stock replacement bolt?

 

man Im glad it worked out for you but damn that the shop needs to be made aware and some kind of compensation!

 

Now would be a good time to change the valve springs if it's moderate cam. You were lucky this time but If it's been a few years since the cam, they could be worn too. (assuming the shop put high lift springs in).

 

UM You can use an OEM Crank bolt you just don't want to re-use the old one.

So did the they use an OEM New Bolt or did they put the old one back in?

 

Good catch Frank. Glad there was no damage to the nose of the crank.

 

a couple years, maintance is a good thing. not sticking up for the shop but a couple years, they built it they dont own it!

 

Thanks guys. The stock bolt was re-used, that was the main problem. Yea I am glad I caught it when I did. Got lucky. Just getting ready to finish it up now. Have to put radiator, fan, throttle body, sway bar etc.. hoses and wires connected and then should be ready to roll.

 

Seems kind of unlikely that the original bolt was reused and failed after such a long time. If it was the original bolt it would have failed much sooner. Also I hope you checked out the pulley and the crank snout.

I had the same thing happen to my car except it was just a few weeks after the H/C/I install. The pulley spinning on the crank ruined the pulley and did scar the crank, but luckily I was able to buy an underdrive pulley a new seal and a new bolt and have been good so far. Mine happened because I must of not been paying attention during install and did not install the crank bolt to spec. OOPS

 

I hate stories like this because I have such bad luck out of tuners with my car. I got ripped off hard by a tuner in NJ (imho) and then I took it to San Antonio and actually worth while to deal with and they did me pretty good.

Glad it didnt do any damage to your car.

 

Yea, we checked everything over very well, I had 2 other friends that have lots of experience with this stuff on C5's helping me. The pulley did not appear to be damaged, and was still on, I got lucky and I think caught it just as it came loose literally, I was only about 1 mi away from home so no apparent damage.

From now on, I am doing all work to my car myself (with help of those I can trust). I learned a new saying .... "why pay someone else to fck up something you can fck up yourself for free"

Also, I did install an underdrive pulley this time, the numbers on the box for the belts to use were off also, had to make a couple trips to napa. Going to call Speed inc who sold me the new underdrive and let them know they need to change the belt numbers on the box as they are wayyy to big

Just finished the car about 45 min ago, eveything appears to be normal so far so good, fingers crossed.

 

THanks and This is why I posted this thread. People need to be very cautious about who they let work on their car. I went with a shop that had a very good reputation locally. I admit it has been a couple years since the job, but come on... its not like I should need to be checking a crank pulley bolt every oil change.... what do I need to pull the block and check the connecting rod bolts once a year to make sure they are done, or make sure the head bolts were torqued properly.

 

Hey Kevin, thanks. Yea when I saw the bolt out before we removed the pulley I thought for sure there might be damage, but I was lucky and did not have any.