Help! Lots of going through the PCV on new engine

There is NO QUESTION to be answered here, is there? If you read all of the information supplied, it was broken in on the stand, then Baumi changed the oil and sent the motor off to the Merc owner. The motor was installed in the Merc and worked well for 1000 miles. Then dipshit drained the oil and didn't put any back in. I seriously doubt that it ran for 100 miles after the "oil change", that's just another part of the lie this Merc owner is telling.

If it worked well for 1000 miles, do you think that taking the drain plug out and draining the oil had any effect on how the PCV valve plumbing worked, or suddenly changed the fuel mixture, or caused the rings to suddenly "unseat", or any of these other cockamamie ideas you folks are throwing out?

 

I don't see one thing that you did wrong.
The pcv setup is exactly what I would do with that intake and those valve covers. Breather on the fill tube, pcv valve on the back of the intake, somewhat hidden to preserve the trad look. Air in through the breather through the crankcase and out through the pcv into the intake, that is what the system does.

If the engine had indeed gone through 5 quarts of oil in 100 miles he most likely would have been pulled over by the local police for making too much smoke. If it had that big of a leak, the whole bottom and back of the car would be covered with oil.

You ran the engine and dialed it in on the test stand and then changed the break in oil and filter before sending it out. That means you did way more than 90% of the so called "engine builders" out there and I would imagine that the whole setup was pretty well dialed in when it left your shop.

The fact that it ran 1000 trouble free miles after the engine was installed. That's what, several weeks or a few months in a lot of cases? No noticeable blue smoke in that time and pretty clear and simple that someone did not put any or enough oil back in the engine when it was changed at 1000 miles. Or they did not replace or tighten the drain plug. Does the pan have the exact drain plug that you installed in it when you built the engine?

One of the first things that my high school auto mechanics teacher taught us the first time we did an oil change in class is that "you never install a drain plug in a pan without the wrench in the other hand". This is the same thing I taught every student in every class that I taught for the 13 years that I taught that same class.

My bet is that the screw up is with the person and or shop that did the oil change. If the bottom and back side of the car aren't oil covered they didn't put the oil back in or enough oil back in.

I'm with some of the others who believe that the black soot on the tops of the pistons can be attributed to the carb not handling the higher pressure of the electric pump that the owner of the car installed. More pressure than the float system in the carb can handle, and a overly rich condition.

I also believe that there are several guys who posted on this thread who need to go back and read what they wrote as it shows that they know little about how an engine works and some of the comments were totally uncalled for and demonstrate that lack of knowledge.

From personal experience if you loose a drain plug in a small block Chev with hydraulic lifters it takes about a block at town speeds for the oil to all drain out and the lifters to rattle so bad that you have to be def not to know that you have a problem. On my own truck and I obviously didn't follow my own training or teaching that one time. The lifters also collapse and the engine runs like hell when the oil is low and pressure drops on these engines. They give plenty of warning signs that something is wrong if the driver is paying attention and keeps the damned sound system turned down so he can hear what is going on.
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Hell to the yes brother! Amen!

 

Yes, the PCV should go to the port on the front of the carb. When I was routing mine on my 1965 sbc, I called Edelbrock just to make sure. Your natural inclination is not to run the line around the corner, that's why I was leery. That being said, I can't imagine that there's any way this could have caused such a catastrophic failure. I just started my sbc after years of sitting & I'm CONSTANTLY looking at the dipstick & checking for leaks. How could he not have been monitoring it?!

 

As hard as it is for me to believe, I'm gonna have to throw my hat into the "no oil" ring. As many others have suggested, a leak or consumption could NOT have gone un-noticed but also, running it out of oil due to leak or consumption would not (should not) have resulted in such wear because the rockers would start rattling long before the bottom end would starve to the point of trashed bearings and, unless he was running open headers or a 1000 watt stereo, he would have heard it.

 

That port on an AFB/Edelbrock is open to manifold vacuum, so it makes no difference at all whether you use it or the power brake port in the back.

 

Think about what you said, he had some other guy's install the motor, hence the electric fuel pump. Now who's to say "they" didn't change the oil and forget to put it back in? Sounds to me like someone is passing the buck here.

 

"They" put the motor in, and then it ran for 1000 miles. I doubt you can blame "they", unless "they" were also the ones who drained the oil after 1000 miles of operation. I say drained instead of changed, because a change means you have to put oil back in.

 

I was taught by my grandfather that 50% of what people tell you is wrong. Since then, I think that that number, corrected for inflation, is closer to 90%.

If I had one dollar for everyone who said what I wanted to do would not work, and one dollar for everyone who says that what I have a long history of success with, was impossible....

 

I'm with the no oil refill group too. You just can't blow through 5 quarts of oil in a mater of a few miles and not know it! Also, maybe it's just the lighting or is that engine painted red? Everyone knows a 383 stroker SBC will piss through about 5 quarts of oil in a hundred miles if it aint painted ORANGE!!!

 

Ok, folks. Here´s an update.
I did some more researching over the weekend and found some interesting facts.

The piece of clear hose on the PCV-Valve wasn´t run into the vacuum port at the back of the carb as shown on the "build pics" but into the air cleaner base. I changed that prior to the first run but didn´t remember until I watched over the intake yesterday.

The air cleaner base and the carb are dry and as clean as new, so I doubt that there was lots of oil going through the PCV into the aircleaner.

I also opened the oilpump, a new Melling HV, and it´s got severe pitting and scuffing in the bottom end, just like it ran dry for a while. ´
I´ve seen used pumps with less wear than this one...

The folks who did the oil change swear they put oil back in , they claim to double check everything ... So, that´s how far I came over the weekend...
Stay tuned, there´s more to come

Thanks, Chris

 

If he too it to one of the quick oil change places it would not surprise me if the didn't put oil back in. Had a buddy's wife take one into one of those places when she got home she told him the car wasn't running good. He called me up to have me take a look at it when I got there and opened the hood I found the oil filter was double gasketed and she had no oil on the dip stick. I took pictures of what I found and fixed the filter added more oil. but the damage had been done. When we fired it up and started to drive it it had a rod knocking. After some fighting with the company that did the work they finally manned up with a rebuilt engine for her car. What helped her case is documentation of the damages (pictures).

 

That's not how a positive crankcase ventilation valve works. It actually needs manifold vacuum to scavenge the fumes from the crankcase. Following the advice about fabbing up a shield on the underside of the manifold would be prudent.

 

What he said ^

That PCV wasn't doing anything anyway.

 

Ok,engine is fine for 1000 miles,no problems.Then the oil and changed and 100 miles later the bearings burn up and supposedly the engine consumed 5 quarts of oil ithe 100 miles since the oil change,correct?
No signs of leaks,no reported cloud of smoke? Eliminate the what's not possible and you're left with what is possible,not enough oil in the engine after the oil change.Friend or not,no oil pressure gauge makes the failure his responsibility.

 

my uncle changed his oil in his new van after 1000 miles.agout a month later he called me and said that he had it towed home and wanted me to come over and look at it and tell me what happened.when he out the oil filter on one of the bolts that hold in the oil filter bung was never put in all the way and the filter bottomed out on it.it didnt leak till he got on the freeway then bam all of the oil came out and he siezed the motor.luckly he had the old oil and filter in the garage.i put the old oil filter on{till it hit the bolt} and had him call the dealer.luckly for him the dealer replaced the motor{and never said a word about the filter problem}im sure that it wasnt his falt just a oops from the factory.

 

Yup. It's always been my understanding that being connected to vacuum is what makes the system "positive". Without vacuum, it would be passive crankcase ventilation.