Quick question before I go to bed.

This happened to me with the ford pickup I'm working on, but the question applies to any engine, so I'm posting it here.

Lets just say that through my own stupidity, I installed the distributor without the oil pump drive shaft. (lesson learned)

I started the engine and let it idle. I set the timing, I checked this and that. It ran long enough to get the heater hoses hot, but not long enough to open the thermostat.

Then the engine boggs down and stops running.

I didn't realize what caused it, so I looked things over, and started it up again.

Within 30 seconds, it stalled again.

When I realized the problem, I chucked a pump shaft in the drill, and spun the oil pump over as fast as the drill would go. Then I had my wife crank the engine over to get the bearings oiled.

After getting the distributor back in, it started right up. Set the timing.

It is acting like nothing is wrong.

How much damage did I do.

Aren't bearings damaged "right now", if they are damaged at all?

Any insight as to what I have to look forward to in the near future?

Thanks,

Dave

Is the oil pressure ok? Does it knock?

If the answers are yes/no then drive it and be happy. If they are not yes/no. Start tearing it down and have a look at the bearings and crankshaft. If in the short term future the oil pressure fades and/or the engine starts to knock then tear it down and look at the bearings and crankshaft.

Now that you have run it with oil I suggest you drain the pan and look at the old oil with an eye towards glittery stuff ie:bearing material. Good luck.

Cut apart the oil filter when you change the oil also. Check for the same little glittery stuff. If you did spin a bearing or two you will see some of it.

Daniel

The engine still starts and runs.
Seemingly just fine.

I think if I spun a bearing, it wouldn't start at all, right?

Dave

You can damage bearing and the engine will still run. From the sounds of it you slightly ceased the engine running it without oil. An oil change as others have stated and watching for metal is in order. Watch for oil burning and watch the oil pressure gauge as that is where you will be able to tell if there was any adverse effect from no oil. there may be no immediate effect but the overall life span may have been shortened.



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...Dennis
The '69 (http://chevelles.com/showroom/ww.jpg), the '96 (http://www.camaroslimited.com/graphics/memcars/96ss.jpg) and The El Camino (http://chevelles.com/showroom/DjD/dsc00016.jpg)
Team Camaro (http://www.camaros.net)
Camaros Limited (http://www.camaroslimited.com)

The engine probably stopped because of the lack of oil between the piston and bore. I'm with the rest, If everything seems ok, run it, you have nothing to loose. Some metalic in the oil of a freshly built motor is normal. It sounds like that at worst you may have caused some premature wear, but nothing that trashed the motor. My opinion.
Good Luck

My concern would be with the fact that the pistons my have seized into the cylinder walls and this could galling of the pistons or the cylinders. A simple compression test should answer this though. Otherwise, I would agree that the bottom end should be ok.

Good Luck!

Was this a fresh engine, or a distributor repair?

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'64 El Camino
383 - TH-350 - 12bolt - 4wh pwr discs
Bedded down for the Winter.

Well, this is a bit embarrasing.

It is a 1985 300 cubic inch Ford straight-6.
It has never been rebuilt or anything.
It has over 300,000 miles on it.

I asked a question about it a few weeks ago in the bench racing section. (and caught a lot of flack becaues it was a ford question)

So, I'll add this the same as I did in that other post. The people in this forum make up an incredible source of information that is matched nowhere else in the world. There are experts here to know answers to just about every question ever asked. Most people here have owned something other than a Chevelle, so odds are pretty good someone might know an answer to a Ford question. There is a good Ford forum, but it pales when compared to this forum.

Dad gave me the truck because it started pinging really bad, and idling very rough. After spending $600 towards getting it fixed without solving any of the problems, he gave up trying to fix it. Rather than kill the engine with it running so badly he bought himself a Dodge Ram, and gave me the Ford. (I was in urgent need of a vehicle anyway, since my wife hit a deer and took her car out of commission for a month)

It was obvious the Ford's engine was going to kill itself from pinging SO bad.

The problem was it was a computer controlled carbureted nightmare.

I don't have emission laws here, so rather than spend a ton of time and $$$ tracking down ghosts in the machine, I decided to upgrade to an older style. (oxymoron?)

I swapped the distributor with a cool GM HEI unit modified to fit this engine. This severed the truck's computer from the ignition system.

It sure took care of the bad idle.

I also bought an old carburetor to install in place of the feedback carb that is on it. I'm still working on that, but should be finished tonight.

As I said, even though this was a question about a Ford, the idea applies to any engine. It could just as easily have been a Chevelle engine.

With 300,000 miles, you are probably wondering how much life it could possibly have left anyway. Well, these engines are known for exceeding 300,000 miles easily. This one was owned by my dad, who always drove it like a grandpa would drive to church. All highway miles, never exceeding 55mph. He got 150,000 miles on the original brake shoes/pads. It still has the original drums/rotors.

We expected to get another 100,000 miles out of it, except that now I ran it with no oil pressure.

Dad and I thought that my idiotic mistake was the death of it. I was afraid I caused damage that would cause catastrophic failure within a hundred miles. I guess that is still a possibility, but not as much of one as I had feared.

I'll drive it and see how long it lasts.

Thanks,

Dave

http://www.chevelles.com/forum/smile.gif

First, stop apologizing for looking for help with a daily.

I was thinking it was a fresh motor, and like, man you just cut a boatload of life out of it, like maybe 90%. But since its an old worn in motor like that. Motor honey and go. Say a Hail Mary for that ol Furd Six.

Not exactly the same situation, but during a pro mud race back in '91 (572" BBC, 1,400HP blown alcohol, TH 400, high stall torq converter) I destroyed yet another transmission. As the engine zinged past normal operating ranges (thank you Crower!)and over revved, a small chunk of mallory departed one of the throws on my crankshaft. Of the 360-degrees of rotation which it could have exited the engine, thankfully it departed DOWNWARD! To this day, I still have the pan as a reminder. Not realizing what had happened, I finished the run (200 feet in around 2.7 seconds) and limped back to the trailer. Total run time after evacuating the pan was probably about a minute. Only after shut down did we discover that all the oil was left back in the mud pit. I used Pennzoil 20W50 back then, as it was alcohol friendly. In short, I truly believe that the quality of that oil and the thin coating of my parts saved my bacon on that motor. A teardown and crank repair was done in the days to follow, and the bearings were unharmed. In fact, I re-used them for the next two racing seasons. They looked as good as new when I sold the racer in '93.

That was my only experience with running a motor with no oil in it....if the engine bogged down and stopped, and if you can rule out running out of fuel as the cause, then lack oil would be the probable cause. Time will tell I guess. Good Luck & let us know how it turns out.

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Gregg Haskin
72 Chevelle SS
71 Pro Touring Chevelle
ZZ502 Crated RATs in both
TEAM CHEVELLE #726 ACES #4486
“What the heck are all these extra nuts & bolts for?”

My 72 Chevelle SS Restoration Website: www.72ChevelleSS.com (http://www.72ChevelleSS.com)

My 71 Chevelle Pro-Touring restoration website: www.71protouringchevelle.com (http://www.71ProTouringChevelle.com)

[This message has been edited by riskyvt (edited 12-13-2002).]

The Ford 300/6 is second only to the Chrysler 225 slant 6 in INDESTRUCTABILITY! You just can't kill these things. Keep an eye on the the oil pressure, keep an "ear" on the sounds, and drive the beast. With 300K on the clock, it's given you more service life than 90% of the 80K anythings on the road. If it gets noisy, thicken up the lube and drive it some more.

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'64 El Camino
383 - TH-350 - 12bolt - 4wh pwr discs
Bedded down for the Winter.

we all make mistakes, but if there is going to be a failure, pick the engine with 300k, I wouldn't plan any long trips my friend..