Engine problems......Opinions....
 

I took the car out Saturday night for a quick run to 7-11 and noticed a "rattle" at idle....I thought nothing of it, maybe a band clamp on the exhaust loosened or something, I am going to change the oil on Sunday anyway so I check it out then. Sunday morning run out to get some bagels and the "rattle" isn't there right away, but once the car warms up it becomes noticable again, only at idle. I put the car up on ramps and start to drain the oil and there is a whole bunch of **** on the end of the drain plug:-( !!! After close inspection and screening the oil and cutting the filter open, it looks like a roller lifter let go or a rocker arm let go??? Not good. I'm sure this condition didn't exist for long, how could it without doing major damage? I am hoping I got lucky and caught it early. After thinking it over I see a few options, but want some opinions on how to proceed after I pop the valve covers and determine if its a rocker arm (are they roller from the factory?) or a lifter (the more likely suspect) and on which cylinder.

1) Replace rockers and/or lifters, check pushrods and inspect the cam for damage (which I would think there is some), and replace as necessary....

or

2) Pull the motor and go through it and freshen it while I'm at it??

Motor currently has 59,000 on it and runs great except for this. At the time this happened I wasn't beating on it (new years eve so ya gotta behave for the police), but I have missed my share of shifts and the shift lite is at 6200 so the motor has seen some RPM in its life.

How difficult is it to pull the motor without a lift, i.e. can the motor come out the top or does it have to drop out the bottom???

I'll follow up with some pics and the remedy once I figure things out, ouch $$$

Thanks
Chris :confused:

Attached is the picture of what came out of the oil pan.....I stopped in at my friends shop and talked to him and few other friends and I am starting to think that the needles are from a rocker arm that let go and not a lifter. The needle bearings look too short to be from a roller lifter.....

I'll know more in the next day or two when I get it apart...

Chris

that not good.

I don't think those came with rollers from the factory but I could be wrong. I'd go through the entire engine though...no sense doing half of it and having a piece left in there somewhere and destroy everything.

roller rockers no,roller lifters yes.e-mail me your phone number and ill tell u what i think---if ur intrested---im in ewing so if u like i can take a look at it (im a mechanic) e-mail is fast28rc@aol.com

ouch, not good

That sucks man....honestly I would pull the motor and freshen it up. It would really hurt to just fix the valvetrain and have another of those needle bearings floating around inside that motor.

- Justin

Look on the bright side, now you can do a cam upgrade while it's apart. That sucks though. If one of those is still kicking around in the engine it could cause big problems.

Looks like a roller rocker failed. I'd pull the motor and check everything out.

he's already got a mild cam in there as well as some other mild engine work.

The motor's already got a mild cam/head package/LS6 intake upgrade done to it. While I would love more, I really don't need more right now. I really think a rocker let go and this weekend I'm gonna find out. I have already talked to the shop that did the motor in my 70 nova and he's on board with the LS-X motors, and was more than willing to help in anyway if I need to go that route. Right now I'm taking the wait and see approach. The plan is to pop the valve covers, intake, valley pan and see what's up.

Is it possible to pull the oil pan with the motor in the car?? This motor is all new to me so bear with me on the dumb questions.

My dilemna is this....if I were to go to the trouble and expense of pulling the motor, then I would probably step up to an LS-2 and take advantage of the cubes, bigger cam and go from there, but that takes $$$$$. At the very least, I'd put a stroker kit in the thing.

We'll see....this weekend will tell me alot. Thanks for the replies and I promise to take pics and keep all interested parties posted...

lol pulling the intake & "valley pan" wont do much good in an lsx motor since you wont be able to see anything lol.

I don't beleive you can pull the pan without pulling the motor.

i can get my oil pan out without pulling the motor, oh wait...thats because it was shattered by the #1 rod.. nevermind lol

yeah LS- series motors have a dry valley. just like the northstar 32v motors. however the northstar is worse than an LS- motor in design because GM decided to stick the starter IN the valley under the intake.

To pull the motor is not that hard, as long as you have a lift, you just disconnect the wiring(throw it on the engine), a/c compressor(tie off to the side), steering shaft, brake lines at abs controller, cooling hoses, etc, then you unbolt the engine k member and trans crossmember(remove tq arm and DS) then lastly i think you unbolt the top 3 bolts on the front struts, and the whole assembly drops out. once out you just unbolt the motor mounts and lift the motor up. My old shop just pulled a 94 v6 that way and my old boss said it was so easy, he thought itd be a bitch due to the car design, but it came right out. Once i get my lift installed I'm pulling the motor out of my SS that way.

oh man. that really sux. sorry to hear that. let me know if you need any info.

hey you decided to sign up :) glad to see you made it over hehe

Scott,

Do you remember how much valve to piston clearance there was and what valve springs are on the motor? If I can simply swap out a new set of rockers, I might up the ratio if there's enough clearance. If the motor has to come out, then I'm gonna up the cam more than likely.

Thanks

as you can see I don't know much about these motors yet, but I have a feeling that is going to change:???:

Chris

Rocker Failed....
 

I thrashed on the Nova last night to make room for the Firechicken and decided to dive in head first tonight and found exactly what I though I'd find after talking to you and bunch of other people. The rocker on #5 intake failed, see attached pic....but I caught it early before any major damage took place I think.......

That's a shame, I've known that car most of it's life (Scott bought it new and I've known him since late 2000/early 2001) and the motor though raced from time to time was well cared for.
Good luck bro.

Rocker Assembly
 

I agree with you, but right now I have 29 needle bearings from the damaged side of the trunion. So I disassembled the other side of the same rocker (which was still intact) and counted 33 needle bearings, the plan is to try and flush the remaining 4 needles out of the motor by pouring a couple quarts of oil directly down the drainback holes. If I can't flush out the 4 remaining needle bearings, then the motor is coming out. At that point, I'm not sure what I'll do?? Major upgrade (big inches) or simple freshen up or something in between...I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Attache is a pick of the disassembled rocker and the retaining cup that failed.

Chris

absolutely....this was just dumb luck...nothing more...he's the only guy I know that sends his oil out for analysis!!

Chris

i am pretty sure they are 918 springs. they never checked valve to piston clearance because the cam is so small (.558 lift & 221 duration).
i hope you find those 4 needles. keep us posted. i sent you a PM.

hopefully you'll get the remaining bearings out of there & be good to go...thats one of the only drawbacks of stock rockers :(

chris, good thread on stock rockers breaking:
http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/showth...eedle+bearings