I had been chasing a knock in the 454 in my convertible for quite some time. Since the motor was in the car when I bought it and I've been itching to build a new 454 using some of the old LS6 parts I had laying around, I went ahead and built the new motor.

Today, as I was pulling out the old motor, guess what I found when I went to unbolt the torque converter?!?!?! :clonk: I'll be damned. One of the bolts had backed out of the BTE stall converter and was hitting the back of the engine block where the casting juts out in the rear of the cam shaft. So much for the locktite I put on the bolts when I swapped converters!

I could swear I double checked that 6 or 8 months ago as that was my first thought (I had been burned by a similar situation on a early 70's pickup truck with a 454 that had loose converter bolts).

Oh well, I've been wanting to build the new motor for quite some time. I guess the other one will need to go in the corner as spare parts!

That stupid bolt had me convinced that I had a spun rod bearing.

Makes you wonder how many posts would have been required to come up with that one..... Oh, well new motor will be FINE!!! And, star locks and loctite this time :D

My elcamino ran real low oil pressure 5psi at idle, I went and took a spare block and crank to the shop, had it bored, new hyper flattops, new vortecs, air gap intake, 10-10 crank. Just for giggles, I swapped out the oil filter adapter, turned out to have a plug in it, along with a collapsed fram filter. I installed another filter adapter, new filter and viola! 45 psi 160* at idle! Dont you just hate these expensive lessons. Jim

Jim,

Did you get the Wix filter?

merles is closed on sundays. I did get a K&N filter for it. Jim

Just another good learning experience, so now you just might be able to diagnose the same problem for someone else, you never know.:thumbsup:
You helped me for more knowledge.

def loose flywheel/converter bolts have thrown off more than one person, also helped some people get good deals on cars with "sup." bad engines, lol
i bought a camero years ago with a locked up engine, turned out the guy used stick flywheel bolts on an auto flywheel, bolts went into the crank-boy, was he pissed, lol

I got caught w/ the stick vs auto tranny crank flange bolts and had to take them back and get the right set!!

Watch this crap close. Who'd a figured???? Bean-counters..............

pdq67

I have bought a few cars that the seller thought the engine needed rebuilt. Most of them had cracked flywheels. The 40 dollar fix was a lot cheaper than a rebuild.

Sounds like good news to me. Now you have a spare motor. I would have cut open and inspected the oil filter to see if there were any signs of a problem. Pretty easy to do.

Good thing you work on your on stuff.Lots of people dont and pay big bucks to have simple crap figured out for them.My neighbor paid $3500 to have the engine replaced in his early 80's Chevy truck.I told him a bunch of things to check that were easy fixes and would need to be checked/done anyway, but he just had it towed off.I think that it was the fuel pump but thats just my opinion.....LOL....

I had a friend call me about ten years ago, her Chrysler minivan had made a horrible noise and stopped. Wouldn't restart, or even turn over. Her brother told her the engine was shot, and he found her one. They had the van towed over to my house, and dropped off the new engine at the same time. I popped the hood, then jacked it up to pull the tires so I could get busy pullin' it. That's when I found the broken axle wedged up against the crank pulley. I pulled the axle, replaced the pulley with the one on the other engine, and started it up. A couple fresh axles, some new motor mounts, and it was back on the road.

A friend of mine had a problem like that years ago with a 79 Chevy 4X4 with a 400 small block. He was driving it home one night and it started knocking and the next morning it was locked up. We thought he must of spun a bearing or something so we decided to pull the motor out. Just as we were pulling the motor out we heard something hit the floor, it was one of the weights off of the flexplate.:clonk:

Back in the late 80's I bought an 82 Trans Am from a local guy who was an airplane mechanic. Had a blowed up engine when he bought it, just installed a 305 from a monte SS or something.

Driving it home I was trying all the bells and whistles. Stopped and took the T-tops out, power windows and locks............ at a stoplight turned the wipers on. Hit the squirters. CAR DIED.

Got it started and drove home. Thing was way out of tune........and the window squirter hose was hooked up to a vaccum port LOL.

I don't fly on airplanes :D

Glad to hear it was an easy fix.:thumbsup: