lack of oil trashes engine

countryguy53

countryguy53

Daily Driver
i just got my engine out and found the hole in the oil filter screen was blocked with gunk that came off the pan because i changed the oil on a regular basis. I picked up this car with 65k on it and now its got 80k i changed the oil regularly but didn't drop the pan when i first got it, as a result the sludge in the bottom of the pan up about 4in was clean as a whistle. and now i get to go completely thru it, fortunately i have two x's so spare parts aren't a problem but i get to drop two engines instead of one. I did order a new oil pump before i got to the old one and the new pump is a duplicate of the old one (same 1in hold in the cover) This doesn't seem to me to be a very good idea to have the restriction in the housing. Any others ran into the same problem? BTW are there any good machine shops in the seattle area who know x engines its a 85 FI 1500 thanks Gene
 
Sorry to hear about the bad luck

Your engine must have had an abused life. We've pulled a lot of engines apart here and have never seen a clogged pump. A bit of sludge in the oil pan yes, enough to clog the pump, no.

On the issue of oil pump screens, 128s and early x1/9s did have an oil pump pick-up that was a full screen the entire area of the footprint. The later cars went to a pickup in which the screen was covered with a an additional steel shroud that has 1" hole in it. This was actually a fairly smart move. Yes it reduces the amount of screen it sucks through and could conceivably result in a clogged mesh, but more importantly, it moves the pickup area to nearly the center of the pan, the spot that is least likely to see oil starvation on hard cornering. On an unshrouded pickup, all it takes is one corner of the pump pickup to come out of oil immersion for the pump to suck air instead of oil. Aside from a series of trap doors inside the pan (which seems like a better solution), the engineers decided that reducing the risk of oil starvation on hard cornering was a better bet than worring about a clogged pick-up.

-M
 
Seattle machine shop

When I lived there I trusted Jerry at Northwest Connecting Rod in South Seattle with my engine and other machining.

Also Ray at Performance Apex in Maple Valley is a trusted resource. Both are in the book, Ray's online in a basic way.
 
I was very happy with Autosport seattle

the work they did was very nice.They do work for vintage racers,among other stuff,seemed familiar with the engine.
 
Thanks for the input

I almost have the second engine out now and I'll be taking parts to the machine shop soon since i have 2 x's i'll let them decide which parts are the best and machine them. I had a neighbor listen to it before i dropped it and he thinks i might have stretched a rod also, so all parts from both will go in to make one good engine.They were both FI1500s 85 86 Gene
 
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