Hi just wanting to go threw exactly what's happened....
Was driving it quite hard last night and all of a sudden lost power and hthe oil light flashed on and I heard an unusual noise coming from the engine I then pulled over and when I cut the engine off I heard a loud whining and grinding noise, checked the oil levels they were perfect started the car back up and its just a tapping noise coming from the block itself and it gets louder as I revved it a bit, now my first thought is obviously oil pump no oil getting to the top = not lubrication = tapping noise but just to let youse know this is quite important. I had my rocker cover sand blasted and poweder coated and if just put it back on last night and it was only hours after puttin it back on this happened I've taken the rocker cover off today to find grit like feeling all over the inside of the rocker cover aswell as all over the cams ect and this exact same thing happened to my cousins b18 when he poweder coated the rocker cover, now I'm wondering how I will solve this of course a flush of oil is needed but is its lie kyl the pump will be completely ruined? Or is there a chance it might now be and the lifter itself and the filter may just be clogged??

 

its possible alot of sand could have got trapped under the vc and then went into the motor

 

How can I resolve this mate? Will the pump need replaced or can I just flush out the old oil from the engine and get rid of the sand?

 

change the oil, run the car for a day, change oil again, see if it goes away.

 

Run the oil even if its still making the tapping noise? Am I best to change the filter?

 

If that much sand got thru the oiling system, there's a good chance your bearings are now shot and you need a full rebuild. You can try flushing everything out as suggested, but I wouldn't hold my breath on it helping. Sounds like you guys need to find a new spot to get your powdercoating done, the place you're using now obviously doesn't clean their parts properly after stripping them.

 

Absolutely change the filter each time you change the oil if you try flushing, that crap will just clog the filter each time you start the engine.

 

Thanks for the info guys I really hope my bearings aren't ruined I'm going to get some oil and drain and refill and see if it helps also change the filter and then drain and refil again as soon as it started tapping I cut it off and haven't driven it since, wouldn't the filter stop the sand going back threw and continuously cycling threw the engine? And that resulting in the filter being that clogged that even oil struggles to cycle threw?

 

Oil filters have a bypass valve that will open and allow unfiltered oil to flow if the filter gets too clogged. Also, if that grit was falling on the cams out of the valve cover, it will get sucked into the cam journals and tear the head up before it even gets into the pan and has a chance to get filtered out.

 

So chances are my blocked needing a complete rebuild?

 

P.s The car ran fine for a few hours

 

The car running for a few hours is when all this grit worked its way thruought the oiling system and slowly tore everything apart. Any idea what material they used when stripping the valve cover? I.E. sand, walnut shell, soda blasting? It they used sand, I'll bet you're fairly well screwed. If it was something softer, you might get lucky.

 

The Boy said it was steel grit ??

 

Ouch

 

Collect it, and go back to them and tell them your engine is damaged. Did you bring your whole car there to have them do a valve cover or something?

 

Was One of my mates that work at a shot blasting garage I just took my cover off and handed him it to do for me

 

Well.............You can probably change oil and filter to flush it but it might be a 10% chance this block will recover from the already damage that has already occurred.

 

Just powder coated the outside of the valve cover mate
My car was left parked in my drive the I had taken the cover off and handed it to my mate to get done at his work when I got the cover back checking the inside completely skipped my mind I just got excited and put it on (idiot move)
Once I started it the car was really smoker at idle I thought maybe with it sitting there for a while that's why it was smokey then once I heat up drove it about for about 20 minutes stopped had a chat with friends then went out again was racing it quite a bit high revving ect when I took the cover back off the next day I could see a lot of small shards of steel (guessing its the steel grit it was blasted with) on the camshafts ect I wiped my finger over it and felt and was actually able to see. The shards of steel on my fingers

 

Hopefully none of those shards got in your bearings.

 

Have you even talk to your buddy about this between the time you open this thread until your last reply? You have some sort of grit on your thats been circulating in your engine. No point in sitting around, either a rebuild or another engine and that depends all on your budget and timeframe to get this car rolling.

 

I've spoke to him he denies blasting the inside of the rocker cover but there is no other explanation to why "steel grit" got into my engine and fucked it only hours after being blasted with steel grit! And only hours putting on the new cover back on, oh well won't be getting anything blasted from there again just picked up a new replacement engine tonight quicker and cheaper to do that than rebuild,