Engine and Transmission Tech

Hi All, This my first posting on this forum. Perhaps one of you has encountered this problem: I have a Rover SD1 3.5 liter engine, recently reconditioned with new bearings, rebuilt heads, etc. Once reassembled and ready to fire up, I charged the oiling system by spinning the oil pump with an electric drill. It looked like lots of oil coming through the rocker assemblies. I ran the pump for about 3 minutes let everything drain back into the sump overnight and ran the pump again the next morning. I reinstalled the distributor and the engine fired right up and I ran it for about 3 minutes at about 2000 RPM and then shut it down. After a cool down period, I started the car in the driveway, put it in gear to test the drive train and drove about 150 yards down the block
in first gear, 2500 RPM. As I returned to the driveway a large amount oil started dripping on the passenger side exhaust header from the breather port and the engine started making noises like the hydraulic lifters had bled down. The oil pressure gauge was under 5 pounds at that point. It was at 30PSI when cool. I tried the car again the next day with the same result. Fearful of damaging the internals I shut it down. I have since added a new front timing cover and D&D high volume pump kit. I get 40PSI at cool and low RPMs and the same clattering at 3000RPM and a hot engine. I searched the Forums and saw information about making sure the rocker arm assemblies were correctly assembled, mine are. I have 5 quarts of oil in the engine, but can't figure out why the lifter bleed down while the engine is running. ANYONE like to give me their input? I

Ken, Ok assuming you have cam bearings installed/clearanced correctly ,and same for lifters, to me, sounds like rocker assembly problem. Oil holes on "bottom" of shafts ? Bore clearance and side clearance good ? Maybe install a "topless", valve cover, to see while running ? Lubing through push rods ? I'm thinkin lifters will ,natually bleed-down at 5 psi. Just not enough press. Push rods correct length and radii ? Good Luck, roverman.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2010 12:04PM by roverman.

Welcome to the forum!
Nice photos! Very tidy work...
Are those Revolution wheels? They look great.
We're going to need a How It Was Done on this car!

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It sounds to me like you're doing all the right things. Your logic seems perfectly solid.

Question: when you changed the front cover and added the oil pump kit, did you dump the oil pan and get a real good look at the oil? That would hopefully let you rule out bearing damage. If you find debris in the oil pan...

Elaborating on what Art said... I'm thinking that even badly worn out rocker arm assemblies probably wouldn't account for both the surplus oil on your exhaust and the low oil pressure / lifter clatter. I would carefully inspect the rocker assemblies, and repeat that inspection while flowing oil through them (with your drill motor...) What symptom would be consistent with a cracked or broken (e.g. defective or over-torqued/crushed) pedestal, for example?

Good luck... and keep us posted!

Don't know about in the US but over here, many people have had problems with the currently available rockers and shafts in that the tolerances were far too large allowing a lot of oil to escape and flood the valve chest areas with the resultant loss of oil pressure.

If you are getting enough oil in the rocker chest that causes it to escape from a breather then I would strip and examine the rocker gear to check the tolerances.

With the Rover V8 in good condition there should only be a relative small amount of oil that escapes from the rocker assemblies hoprfully it is nothing more serious, it shouldn't be crankcase pressuriation as you seem to have the PCV system in place.

Is that a SD1 engine? or are you just using P5/6 valve covers.

Kevin



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2010 01:39PM by castlesid.

You say a lot of oil from the breather port, which breather port? Is it possible all the oil is staying up top of the engine and not draining back? Did you fit debris screens in the valley. That may be a concern if the mesh is too small.

Alan

Thanks to Art, Curtis, Kevin and Alan for the responses. Everything in this engine in new or reconditioned and all the bores are clean. I did check the pan for debris, but only found the tiniest trace of swarf there. Thanks for the positive comments about the car. Yes, Revolution wheels. It is an SD1 block and Rover rebuilt heads and P5/6 powder coated valve covers. The rear breather port on the passenger side had a filter only on it when it leaked out the oil. I have since placed a PCV valve connected to the air filter base and no more oil has leaked out. No debris screens. I had thought that maybe the outlets from the heads were not allowing enough oil to drain back to the valley area, but they are large and clear.

I spoke with Mark LeGrou at D&D Motors today and he posited that the pushrods might be rubbing on the
bore openings in the heads since there is some tolerance for movement of the rocker/pedestal assembly.
Gravity will pull the rocker assemblies down during attachment, so, at Mark's suggestion, loosened and then
re-tightened the rocker pedestal bolts while prizing the assemblies toward the intake manifold. On visual inspection, there appears to be gaps between the pushrods and the bore openings now, whereas before there were some rods appearing to make contact with the bores. I am also going to change the oil to Castrol Syntec 20w50 and add some ZDDP additive before restarting the motor. I will update the forum tomorrow. Thanks, again for the input. I have spent a number of hours at the site studying other Rover 3.5/T5 early MGB conversions. I purchased the car as a project where the previous owner have done all the body and mount modifications and collected all the parts needed to complete the car. If I were to do this again I would buy the 302 Ford kit and go Ford since the parts are a lot easier to source and the power plant is more robust and bit less "exotic". Ah, well, Hindsight is....

Fresh engine and synthetic oil are not allways a good Idea, Syn oil is a superb lube, but desgned for coated bores and thin rings, run a fresh engine on this and the bores WILL glaze

I think Ian has it right, the blow-by could be from the rings not being seated. I used regular Mobil motor oil to break in the (used) rings on my Ford 223. It took a little time, but the rings are now seated. You'll have blow-by until the rings seat well.

I'm not a fan of Castrol Syntec, except for use in a MG 1950cc 4 cyl. engine. The MG engine likes the extra viscosity. I tried using Castrol Syntec 20w-50 in a Toyota engine (in the summer) and the engine labored with that oil. Switched to (used) Mobil1, and that made a big difference.

I'd use a real synthetic like Mobil1 or Royal Purple after you've broken in the rings.

I changed the oil to Valvoline VR1 20w50 Racing Oil and added a 15.00 dollop of ZDDPplus(4 oz).

Fired it up and there was the sweet sound of liftera lightly clicking the cam shaft. After a warm up period
at 2000RPM, only one lifter started making noise at about 195F water temp. It may have a sticky ball check valve, so I will give it a rap with a rubber mallet tomorrow. Straight pipes with cherry bombs on it right now, and I am sure the neighbors appreciate me not running it too long in the early evening. I still can't get the Perma Cool adjustable fan switch to work, even after a talk with their tech guy this morning. Seems like every step forward with this project brings another step back somewhere else. I'm getting to the "Push-it-out-on-the-street-with-a-For-Sale-sign" stage. It does look great sitting in the garage, though!

Ken, first let me say that's a great looking car and I'm sure you'll get much enjoyment out of it once you have this sorted out.

Right, so let's get on with it then. All Buick V8's (Rover) of this era need extra attention paid to the oiling system. Just slapping one together with stock bits is a roll of the dice. (Not that I'm saying you did that mind you.) Everything from one end to the other needs careful attention, starting with the bearings. Main and rod clearances must be held tight to around .001" and this has been repeatedly born out by many Buick enthusiasts building street and race engines. I don't know why it isn't more well publicized on the British forums but that is where the process begins. Control tolerances, minimize leakage, improve pump efficiency, increase the pickup passage diameter, port the pump housing, install a "Booster Plate", forgo the high volume modification (It adds stress to an already highly loaded distributor gear and leads to failures, and has been repeatedly proven unnecessary if the other oiling mods are done.) Make certain cam bearing clearances are minimal, be certain lifter fit is close, use good rocker shafts, and finally, if flow to the rockers is excessive, use restrictions to reduce flow to the top end.

I'm quite sure all of the oiling mods have been detailed on this forum in the past, it would probably be a good idea to search for them. You can also find them on the V8Buick website.

I do not know the state of your engine clearances and such, but much can be done without tearing down the motor. In particular the pick-up passage and porting the front cover can yield very good results. You can pick and choose which mods you want to implement. Hope that helps.

JB

Jim, Thanks for the input. I did not assemble the bottom end of the engine. The previous owner purchased the short block and was assured all was done right with the intent of a long engine life. The lifters were new when I installed them as were the pushrods. The camshaft was new and the cam bearings looked excellent and spec'd out fine. I think I am down to one noisy lifter which may have a faulty or debris filled check valve.
If by "booster plate" you mean adding 1/4" to the oil pump housing and longer gears, that is what has been done. I now have 40 PSI when cool and 20-25 when hot at idle.

I'll let it sit for a few days and go step by step with my British friend who was a British car mechanic for 40 years.

Cheers,

Ken

Ken, the booster plate is nothing more than a steel spacer that goes between the housing and cover. It stiffens the pump cavity and provides a new wear surface. Pump gear end clearance should be set using shims to about .001"-.0015". In practical terms this means as tight as possible without dragging. The ports into and out of the pump should be smoothed and rounded, enlarged where practical. The 5/8" V6 Buick pick-up tube should be used. The pick-up passage in the block should be enlarged to 5/8" using a piloted drill, this can possibly be done in the car, but the pan must be removed. Drill from the front and the bottom and carefully remove all chips. The passages in the cover can be enlarged and the corners radiused.

The gears and spacer plate you installed are known to cause distributor gear failures so just be aware that this could be a future problem. In addition, the spacer plates I've seen are not a close fit to the gears so I really don't know how much you gain by using them. If the rest of the engine is tight they are not needed or wanted. It would be a good idea to remove the pan and intake and pressurize your oil system and look for excessive flow around the bearings, cam, lifters, and top end. This can be done various ways, either using the engine's oil pump or an external accumulator. If you have the pan off you might as well plastigage a couple of bearings while you're in there just so you generally know what you've got. Common practice is to set bearing clearances at .002" but this does not work well with these engines as it causes excessive loss of pressure and flow. If your bearings are loose, you should be able to get +.001" undersized bearings to tighten them up. Otherwise you'll just have to rely on band-aids.

Cam bearings are a known problem area. Buick honed the shells in place (not sure of Rover practice) and the bearing bores can vary by as much as .005", usually undersized. In practice this means that either sloppy bearings or hand scraping has been the approach to getting the cam to fit, both with bad results. So it's something you want to have a look at, at the very least by pressurizing the system and looking for leakage. Lifters are on the market which are a less than optimal fit in the bores, again causing leakage. Something else to look for.

I believe Rover never upgraded to pushrod oiling of the rockers, so if there is excessive leakage around the rockers the only remedies are new (tight) rocker assemblies or restricting orifices in the supply passages. Sorry, I can't suggest an orifice size.

JB

Rover never fitted hollow poshrods, even the last of the 4.6s were fed by the rocker pedistal,
Have you fitted roller rockers?, these should run a restrictor to prevent excess oil escaping thru the rockers

Intimidating-yes ? I don't know how one would get , first rate cleaning, at rebuild time with-out removing old cam bearings ? Yes intalling new ones, and being good on bore sizes is a ,"crap shoot".What to do ? I modified a used-cast cam, with full size journals, by cutting a single, positive lead flute, in each journal, indexed 180 deg on each successive journal. This works somewhat like a reamer, to resize new bearings. This will NOT give a "mirror" finish ! Block standing on end, flood of oil and,"slow" feed rate. If you want a better finish, send it out for "align boring $$". Only the "skilled", need apply. Good Luck, roverman.

Yes, this is a known problem and Art's remedy is one of the better ones. What happened is that as the production line tooling wore the bores got smaller, and rather than change out or adjust the tooling frequently enough to maintain precise size, they just ran them, pressed in the inserts, and then align honed the softer bearing material to finish size. The correct remedy is, as Art mentioned, align honing the cam bearing bores which are usually undersized more or less. But since that probably wasn't done, standard bearing inserts would have made the cam tight at install time and the remedy was to either use oversized inserts (larger bore) or more commonly to simply hand scrape the bearings until the cam fit. As you can imagine this leads to hemorrhaging of oil once under pressure and the hotter and therefore thinner the oil is, the worse the leak.

JB

Oil Starvation may be a mis-diagnosis here. I do have 40PSI, hot at 2000+RPM and 20-25PSI hot at idle.
The lifter noise is not present in any degree until the water temp gauge reaches 195F. Now it seems to be isolated to the #3 lifter, pushrod, rocker area. I am thinking this is a pushrod binding on the pushrod oriface/galley/bore/hole in the head. Visually, it looks very close when cold. I am going to tackle this noise issue from the top down, firstly reaming out or mildly chamfering the hole/s in the head. Dammit! That means removing the heads.

On a side note, there must be some blowby from the new rings not yet being seated as there seems to be higher crankcase pressurization than one would expect. I am getting oil all the way up on the air filter base plate and a bit dripping down into the carbs causing a nice smoky exhaust at times.

Ken, sounds like you need (2) kinds ? One to suck-up metal shavings, when you have vacum nozzle under the hole your enlarging? Easier to pull just intake, than 2 heads ? Other vacum from egr. pump to help the rings seal ? Good Luck, roverman.

Oil pressure should be 10 psi per 1000 rpm hot. 20 at idle is just fine. Bear in mind, these aluminum motors do tend to transmit more lifter noise than an iron engine and sometimes chasing that tapping lifter is just an exercise in frustration and parts buying. Frequently what is taken for lifter tap is actually an acceptable level of normal engine noise. I know when all is quiet except for that one lifter it can be quite maddening, and I hope you find a simple solution. If you do please inform us. But bear in mind that if you get to where that is the largest concern, it really is something you can take your time with.

As for the blowby, hopefully that will improve as the rings wear in. There is a rather good article on pcv in the newsletter section that could help.

JB

Might be also worth checkng for exhaust manifold leaks, they can provide some deceiving noises, bit of a tap is often heard and mistaken for something far worse

Update: After boring out the openings in the head that the push rods pass through I spun up the oil pump to
inspect oil flow to the rocker assemblies. To my amazement, oil was squirting out from the gaps in the split washers under the bolt heads. After doing some research, I discovered that Rover used shouldered bolts to center the pedestals and prevent oil from coming out the top of the pedestals. Not knowing where to source
the shouldered bolts, I bored out some washers for a tight fit under the 5/16" bolt heads. Voila! No more leakage. Oil pump pressure is 40PSI cold, 25-28 hot and no more oil coming up through the PCV hoses into the carb. However, I still have what sounds like a collapsed or bled down lifter clacking away after the engine
water temp gauge reaches 180 to 190F. On startup, the engine sounds great; very little noise except for the subtle clicking of the valve train. I have ordered a set of Rhoades lifters. I am hoping that will solve the problem. The Lunati units look perfectly new as does the Elgin cam surfaces.

Here's hopin'.....