This has to be up there..
 

Assembled my new top end, bought the 28 sealants/silicone lubricants/threadlockers required and had two manuals open/double checked every torque setting, valve setting, flat plated every piece, surgically cleaned everything, and prayed a lot.

Had a P-Car friend come over (thank you God.. .and Bela) come over for final start-up last night (he did magic CAM timing the night before) and I had a DE day as a shakedown today. He tells me that the 3 plugs are color coded (Amazing!) and the reason she starts but won't keep running is because I plugged all three BLACK (well, they were all black until the car was outside of the dungeon I built her in) in the wrong places.

OK, all set, and now she runs great! We go to the track and I take her out, great, all is well. My wife goes to go out and I hear a hellacious noise coming from the left side, kind of like a "chain" rushing against my engine case.

Sooo, during the removal, movement, etc. of me messing with my engine the cam cam oiling lines got a little tweaked. The one on the right side required a slight bend for it to line up with the hole.

The left one lined up, both with the stud for the steadying mount and the hole in the center of the cam box cover perfectly but I noticed it threaded in a bit tight from the 1/2 way point. No biggie, and she didn't leak so all is a go!

The moral to this story (and I admit to being a TOTAL idiot), be sure you are screwing that Carerra Cam chain oil line into the tensioner as the left side cover has a hole EXACTLY the right OD to allow that tensioner oil bolt to thread into! I can say I was tired, say it was 9:00 at night, but this even amazes me.....

Not sure what damage was done, it actually seemed to quiet down as we let it idle, waited a while, restarted. Giving it to Dan Jacobs to be 100% sure i'm race ready though!
:o

Dropped her off at the shop, no hint of the noise.... guess it took a while for the tensioner to get full pressure? Having them pop off the cam box cover and check it all out, change the oil, replace the tensioner if necessary. Hopefully i've filled my quota for dumb mistakes for the year.

She's bone dry though!

Gary,

Congrats on the dry engine. I read your post, a couple of time, and get that perhaps a tensioner did not tension its self??? But, how did this happen again? Are these the covers with the thermo switch threaded boss in them? You put the oil line into that fitting? Or am just way tired to understand what happened?? :)

Cheers

Your just not dumb enough to fathom what I did Jeff.. :eek:

There is a raised part of the cam box cover casting about 1" away from the tensioner hole (10:00 position from the tensioner shaft). That's where she screwed into. It's just a blank hole in the casting and I assume slightly tapered which let me screw the oil feed bolt into it without too much effort, and it tightened up nicely, didn't leak either!

So what's the damage report?

Actually none but we replaced the tensioner as a precaution, and of course changed the oil and filter.

He put the cam oil line into a hole in the chain cover instead of into the tensioner itself. I'm glad it all worked out Gary.

The air pumps that some SCs were equipped with had three studs that held them in place. Two of them are two of the bolts that hold the chain cover on along the top edge, and the third one is that hole you used. It is the lower one in this picture on my motor before the rebuild. The spacers were installed after I removed the pump.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1313689544.jpg

You can see in this after photo that I pulled the studs and replaced them with CV joint bolts.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1313689857.jpg

I am glad you got away without damage!

100% correct, You can see the inviting hole quite clearly in that photo... :o

Yep! I can't remember what I did with it. I may have just covered it with JB Weld.

Glad to hear Gary, see you at the track!