That doesn't matter. You have since ground up a camshaft and one or more lifters and slung it all over the inside of that engine, and started beating up a second one. Before the second cam a few of us mentioned the only sure-fire way to clean the engine of the grit was total disassembly so it didn't tear up the crank and bearings.. There has been no mention of any cleaning. What you didn't say or clarify on is important here.
It's not going to fix itself by putting it together and taking it to the salvage yard. Time to stop and regroup before charging off in the wrong direction yet again. Excessive bearing clearance could be a likely culprit of near zero oil prssure, whether wrong bearings from the get-go or damaged. You've said I measured, I checked, It's perfect, quite a few times so not sure what to make of the plastigage comment.
Hipster,
Recently I did a bit of research through the OP's saga, and I remember reading his reply on the cleanup steps he took:
Cleanup post camshaft failure
With
my luck the new bearings would inform me that I didn't go quite far enough with the
decontamination effort...by giving me low oil pressure at a hot idle, but OK pressure
everywhere else. :-( But maybe DeCaff2007 is a lot luckier fellow than I seem to be,
and I'm just being overcautious?
@DeCaff2007, given everything that's transpired I would not rely
upon a 30+ year old factory instrument cluster electric oil pressure gauge to
make an informed decision on your engine's long term usability?
Listen, you have been on a Lewis & Clark style journey with this project.
If you are intent on seeing it through to the finish line, then you really
ought to consider investing in a (relatively) affordable yet still accurate enough
mechanical oil pressure gauge like this: (
0-100 psi mechanical oil pressure gauge)
And if you keep the truck, this gauge will give you 100% knowledge of
exactly what all your bearing surfaces are seeing. And if you ever
decide to retire/sell this vehicle? Remove this gauge and use it on
your next ride. Because it's so simple, gauges like this are a invest-once,
use for a lifetime kind of thing.
Bottom line, you've been having issues with the 30+ year old stock electrical
gauge. When you report an oil pressure, I simply don't know.
But if you had a simple, rugged, accurate mechanical oil pressure gauge hooked up
to your truck and you told me the idle oil pressure at cold startup, followed by
a 2nd reading at a hot idle, *then* I would know what's going on, and now be able
to have an intelligent discussion with you about whether or not you got the
engine clean enough after the first cam failure to deliver many thousands of
(s)miles worth of driving.
What can I say? It's not a
cleanliness obsession by yours truly, it's the
exacting 0.002" to 0.003" bearing clearances required for longevity that dictate
just how clean we are forced to get the inside of our engines. (Note: The diameter
of a human hair is on average ~0.004" -- almost nothing compared to the SBC's
journal diameters.)
It's one thing to be able to persuade another human to our particular point of view.
But when it comes to machines, there's no reasoning with them. It's either their way or
no highway for you. Engines in particular have a brutal honesty about what does and
does
not work for them.
EDIT: Here's a brief yet informative article on engine bearing clearances: (
Clearance tradeoffs)
And I write all of the above from the perspective of wanting you to succeed with your
project. I have no doubt that the number of people who successfully build an engine
in the 21st century is far less than 1% of the adult population. If it was easier/less challenging
to pull off an engine rebuild no doubt more people would do just that instead of getting
themselves tangled up in a spendy 84-month new car loan. (!)
To summarize, did you get the engine clean enough that your new bearings will give
you adequate oil pressure during a hot idle? (Adequate for the SBC is 10lbs per 1000 RPM.)
With the aged electric factory oil pressure gauge? I have no idea.
With a mechanical gauge? Now we possess the hard data to be able to make that decision.
I hope you understand both my motivation and where I am coming home.
Hope you find this helpful.
I just know I’ll drop something in and cause catastrophic damage.
