The Cal-look Lounge

Have been having probs with my 2276 on/off for a bit, last week oil temps seemed to spike and pegged out pretty high (255F) when it normally runs much cooler, and since then its just notfelt or sounded 'right'. I thought I'd have a listen to it on Sunday am, plus I wanted to wake my neighbours kids up in retaliation to keeping me awake a couple of days ago. So I started it up and let it idle to warm up a bit. Once warm I gave it a couple of blips to have a listen - nothing serious, 2500-3500 rpm, and it just 'squeaked' and STOPPED. Cannot turn the engine by hand at all now. Also, not sure if this is normal, but the oil pressure guage was reading a constant up & down pressure fluctuation, at idle, when initially cold from 50-80 psi. Anyone got an idea why this may be? Is that normal?

I'm going to strip it down over the next few weeks to try to ascertain the problem. Whatever, I feel that this is going to cost me a few quid and make me miss bug jam, which I was really looking forward to... Can anyone give me a clue of what the best case & worst case scenarios may be when I split it open?

I suppose (trying to look on the bright side) that I could just bite the bullet and get on with getting the bodywrok up to scratch as well now, seeing as how its unlikely it will be back together for Bug Jam.

Any insight into any of the above would be great.

sounds about right , get it apart dude.

pop the rocker covers off and look at the valve gear, if all seems ok at the top end, take the plugs out and take the rockers/push rods out(remembering to keep them in the correct order) and try and turn it over by hand again. drop the oil and check the filter for any nasties, oil could be quite revealing to problems ;D

Not had a motor just stop exactly as you describe, but I have had a cheap ali pulley split down the keyway - that gave a squeak and dragged the motor rpm down. When you strip the motor, keep checking bits - don't just rip it apart. Check it completely cold, then valvetrain off, check again, heads off, check again, B&Ps off, and so on.

Hate to give you Bad News But Sounds like it Spun a Bearing? how old is the engine? how many miles on it? if its new you could have missed the Dowell Pin  and Pinched the Bearing  :o :o

The engine has about 1200 miles on it. I didn't build the motor, but have confidence in the guy that did.

I'll start stripping it out while my wifes away with the outlaws (family, not drag racers!) next week and I can spend as much time in the garage as I want! I'll definitely try to kep some order to the strip down to try and get a lead on where it went wrong, thanks for the great tip guys.

There has always seemed to be a 'tight point' when turning the engine over. Would this indicate anything like a pinched bearing, or would that manifest itself as a general tightness to the engine?

Cheers

smell the dipstick. If it doesn't smell like normal motor oil, and it has a definite "burnt" stench to it, you'll know you lost the motor somewhere, if a rod bearing died, you probably would have heard some banging as the bearing went away and the clearances opened up. A friend of mine bought my '71 Bus that had a solid 1679 I built for it, but I cheaped out on the oil hoses and went rubber and he never checked/changed them, was going down Interstate 5 in Stockton, blew oil line, didn't know it ( ???) and kept going, KERCHINK! He had it towed home, called me over to listen to it and I said "it RUNS?" Sure enough, he was running it with no oil in it... sounded like somebody dumped a full set of metric wrenches in the case, cling clanging in there... holy sh!t. Anyway after the motor was apart and the crank was gone, as was the rod. Luckliy the case made it. I would think a main got pinched, or contamination or the end play was set too tight. Too tight of an end play setting will weld flywheel, shims and # 1 bearing into an ugly mess.

That is way too much oil pressure.  What oil vis were you using?

Yeah I'd been trying to get it down bruce. WHen cold it could get as much as going off my 100 psi scale, but when hot would barely get above 35psi at higher rpm's. Running 15W/40 btw. I have to be honest, as far as noises go it sounded OK!

With that much pressure you could have floated and spun a main bearing?

You must have one hell of an ear Jim, I can barely tell if they're box end or combination...

Seriously though, it sounds like the rear main grabbed the sh!t outta the crank.

P.S. What does this mean, I thought it was a track from a Fatboy Slim album?

Sounds like you may have pinched the rear main. You don't start the engine with the clutch pedal depressed , do you? If you do, this could be the problem. They will also pinch if you keep the clutch depressed for long stretches, like in traffic. Good luck!

Bodywrok is what I do to keep my spirits up when I screw the mechanics up on my car! :D :D

Nah, engine was out of gear. Didn't realise that though John, thanks for the heads up.

Cheers guys!