Disclaimers: I just turned 77 in December so am probably suffering from advanced Partzheimer's; This happened circa 1966, 60 years ago so memories of sharp youngsters might falter over that amount of time. That being said, does anyone want to comment on this thing that happened with my engine? I bought my hemi from a cl***mate in '66 and it was in boxes, totally dis***embled. Of course he sold it to me as as 392, turned out to be a '52 331. That is a common occurrence. Had just bought my '36 Willys coupe from another cl***mate (he said it was a '33) and my '54 Dual Range Hydramatic from another cl***mate. It is a Willys ******! Finally got my '56 Olds rear end by buying a wrecked car. Didn't realize the desirable rear was from a '57-up. Regardless of less than perfect parts choices, I turned the car into my dream car. Here is the mystery. I went through the whole engine, seeing if the parts were in good enough shape to put it back together and run. When I got to the rocker shafts, I pulled the cotter pins and cups out of the ends of the shafts and to my shock, the shafts were packed full of snow-white co**** silica sand! Sand was co**** enough there is no way it should have been pumped into the shafts. There was no sign of the inevitable damage that would have happened if the stuff came through the oil system. No scoring of the crank, cam was really old and worn but from being old, not ground down from sand. All bearings were likewise old but as expected. The oil pump should have been totally trashed but was like new. In fact I am still running that oil pump 60 years later. Has anyone heard of a reason someone might fill rocker shafts with sand?!
Could it have been silica desiccant granules? Closely resembles white sand and could be purchased in bulk. We used to pack aircraft engines going to storage with bags of it and clear plastic tubes that resembled spark plugs and were filled with it in the plug holes. Worked great. This is an example of the new style aircraft engine dehydrator. The silica is colored and the color changes as it absorbs moisture. The stuff we were using in the early '60s was white.
Makes no sense. I wonder if someone had filled them in trying to clean them? How could it oil the rockers? Were the shafts burnt on the bottom side?????
Shafts were perfect (still running them) rocker bushings were perfect. I'm not talking about a few grains, they were packed full. Definitely silica, more like gravel than desiccant. And knowing the guy who sold it to me and the cardboard boxes the parts were in, don't imagine him gl*** bead blasting or installing desiccant!!
Maybe some trick to make them stronger? It would also keep the oil back in the bearings for Higher rpm protection/ Just spit balling....
Good a guess as any! Again, pretty sure the guy wasn’t a performance nut, engine was a dead stock mill.
Did your cl***mate had a mischievous little brother? The kind who would do something like this to his brother dis***embled engine to see it blow up at restart.
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