Hemi tick: at least partly metallurgical

[Gregket1]

So I was planning on a preemptive cam/lifter swap on my 2014 1500 with 54,000 miles to avoid the shrapnel in the engine. Last oil change I cut open the filter and found metal flakes: no longer preemptive.


Every lifter was still in perfect shape: rollers have no wear, roll perfectly, have no vertical play, yet the cam is losing metal for no reason.

Very odd and annoying.

Greg

 

[fitteenhundred]

Greg. Thank you for posting this. Really good info. Did the engine give you any symptoms, ticking?
Also just out of curiosity, what brand and viscosity oil had you been running. This problem is such bs. Tom

 

[Gregket1]

No, no ticking. As I said, after reading the forums I was planning a preemptive repair. The thing that first made me concerned was that when mds kicked in it seemed more like it was running on 3 rather than 4. That “miss” bugged me and made me wonder if I was feeling 8 or just 7 the rest of the time. No codes either. Just paranoia…

I bought the truck used from a local dealer at about 38,000 miles. Previous owner was from Colorado and and had 7% idle time when I got it. I’ve been changing the oil roughly every 4000 miles using RP (when I can get it) or various high quality synthetics (valvolene or mobile1).

Greg

 

[Burla]

How do you know the metal found was cam metal? Did you save the oil and send it off to blackstone?

 

[ramffml]

No, no ticking. As I said, after reading the forums I was planning a preemptive repair. The thing that first made me concerned was that when mds kicked in it seemed more like it was running on 3 rather than 4. That “miss” bugged me and made me wonder if I was feeling 8 or just 7 the rest of the time. No codes either. Just paranoia…

I bought the truck used from a local dealer at about 38,000 miles. Previous owner was from Colorado and and had 7% idle time when I got it. I’ve been changing the oil roughly every 4000 miles using RP (when I can get it) or various high quality synthetics (valvolene or mobile1).

Greg

To be honest, that is a very light scuffing and I don't know if that would even register at this point as a valve lift issue. But super lucky you caught this and I second the request to send the oil to Blackstone, would love to know the wear metals.

 

[crackerjack1957]

I would agree with OP.......there is flaking/pitting on the lobe.
It's shiny around the same area where the roller is in contact with the lobe.
Probably Chinese iron alloy.
We have machined some junk metal from China before & still do.

 

[Zoe Saldana]

So I was planning on a preemptive cam/lifter swap on my 2014 1500 with 64,000 miles to avoid the shrapnel in the engine. Last oil change I cut open the filter and found metal flakes: no longer preemptive.
View attachment 539813View attachment 539814

Every lifter was still in perfect shape: rollers have no wear, roll perfectly, have no vertical play, yet the cam is losing metal for no reason.

Very odd and annoying.

Greg

Redline would have prevented this.

 

[Gregket1]

@Burla Yes I did. See below.
@ramffml You are correct, there were no "symptoms" other than metal flakes in the filter.
@Zoe Saldana possibly. I have no idea what oil was used for its early life (majority of its life). And I can’t always find it so use what I can find. This load of oil was Redline with CamGuard added to it.

Blackstone from the same oil change where I found the metal in the oil filter (the change -470 miles before this repair). I find it odd that even with metal in the oil filter the oil analysis came up negative. *shrug*

 

[Gregket1]

I would agree with OP.......there is flaking/pitting on the lobe.
It's shiny around the same area where the roller is in contact with the lobe.
Probably Chinese iron alloy.
We have machined some junk metal from China before & still do.

Yes, you can see the pitting on the second lobe from the bottom in both pictures. Those are different lobes. More lobes looked like that, but to a lesser degree. It is like the hardened layer was only half a hair thick and started flaking off.

 

[crackerjack1957]

Yes, you can see the pitting on the second lobe from the bottom in both pictures. Those are different lobes. More lobes looked like that, but to a lesser degree. It is like the hardened layer was only half a hair thick and started flaking off.

Half a hair thickness would be about .002
LoL........
You stay in the upper RPMs much?
Could be roller lifters skidding over lobes stressing them from weak valve springs but if that was the case should be roller wear signs on lifter

 

[fadetoblack188]

engine are made to wear. there will always be some form of metal in the oil no matter what i feel. this is alot of work as a preemtive. but my hats off to you for taking it on.

 

[ramffml]

Half a hair thickness would be about.002
LoL........
You stay in the upper RPMs much?
Could be roller lifters bouncing over lobes from weak valve springs but if that was the case should be roller damage on lifter

@Wild one has mentioned this as a possibility more than once, weak valve springs.

 

[crackerjack1957]

@Wild one has mentioned this as a possibility more than once, weak valve springs.

Wasn't mention here though.....LoL
Need to put that cam on a hardness tester to see if indeed the case hardening was deep enough.
Hardness about .06 deep is the norm.
Flaking more than likely caused by stress.
See below.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/c14619ba-91b5-4cc9-9d6f-6a438cadadad/content&ved=2ahUKEwjl0tTr14qFAxXELdAFHY6eD6c4ChAWegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw0srFoB2IPMI-Fa8Y3SmOMg

 

[Gregket1]

Half a hair thickness would be about .002
LoL........
You stay in the upper RPMs much?

Nope. Seldom unless passing. For me I t’s a commuter/hauler not a hot rod.

Could be roller lifters skidding over lobes stressing them from weak valve springs but if that was the case should be roller wear signs on lifter

Lifters were all in good shape. A couple were looser left/right than the others, but none had any vertical slack.

 

[Gregket1]

@Wild one has mentioned this as a possibility more than once, weak valve springs.

So here’s an interesting question/thought. Watching all the “YouTube’s” about this change everyone says “soak the lifters in oil for a day but expect lots of clatter when you first start it. This will last 10-30 minutes as everything fils with oil.” Some of them even rev’d the engine during clatter stage to try to hurry it along.

Holy guacamole… that is a lot of hammering of empty lifters against poorly lubed cam lobes. Did dodge do it this way “back when”? That could have caused lots of random damage depending on who was running the throttle during start up.
Or, did they have a solution to prefill the lifters/push rods?

I decided to try something I haven’t seen before: I used a vacuum pump and vacuum tank and put all the lifters and pushrods in a bucket of oil in the system. I pulled -28” Hg of pressure for several cycles then on the last cycle let the pump run until no more bubbles came out. This guarantees that every new lifter and every push rod is completely full before I start the system. I also plan to do a no-start crank until oil pressure before letting it actually start.

I’ll let you know tomorrow how it goes.

 

[Choupique]

Good thread here. Cool to see someone preemptively ripping into an engine to see what's in there.

Oil flakes in the pan is not unusual at all. It isn't going to show in the oil analysis unless the sample contains suspended wear particles. Blackstone won't know there were chunks in the pan or the filter. Simple check - magnetic gunk = cam lobes and non-magnetic gunk = bearing material.

I can't wait to see where this hunt leads you. I'm going with chineesium cam lobes being the culprit.

 

[fadetoblack188]

So here’s an interesting question/thought. Watching all the “YouTube’s” about this change everyone says “soak the lifters in oil for a day but expect lots of clatter when you first start it. This will last 10-30 minutes as everything fils with oil.” Some of them even rev’d the engine during clatter stage to try to hurry it along.

Holy guacamole… that is a lot of hammering of empty lifters against poorly lubed cam lobes. Did dodge do it this way “back when”? That could have caused lots of random damage depending on who was running the throttle during start up.
Or, did they have a solution to prefill the lifters/push rods?

I decided to try something I haven’t seen before: I used a vacuum pump and vacuum tank and put all the lifters and pushrods in a bucket of oil in the system. I pulled -28” Hg of pressure for several cycles then on the last cycle let the pump run until no more bubbles came out. This guarantees that every new lifter and every push rod is completely full before I start the system. I also plan to do a no-start crank until oil pressure before letting it actually start.

I’ll let you know tomorrow how it goes.

unlesss your going to pump them up under the oil its soaking in by hand, soaking them is a waste of time.. you can put some assembly lube on the roller if it makes you feel better but the cam already should be covered in assembly lube.

you can also pressurize the oil port with a garden sprayer until the oil is comming out over the rockers but again, still isnt pumping up the lifters, then come with enough lube of them in the bag to keep them ok until they pump up. dont over think it, let it chatter for ten min

 

[Gregket1]

unlesss your going to pump them up under the oil its soaking in by hand, soaking them is a waste of time..

That was my thought too. So by using the vacuum pot I did “pump them up”: The vacuum removed all the air then when you release the vacuum the the oil is forced in to fill any voids. Now they are sitting there in the same condition after you are parked for an hour: full of oil but no pressure.

 

[Wild one]

Some outfits reconmend against soaking or pumping them up,but i've always soaked them,usually for a day or 2 before installing them,if i'm feeling ambitious i'll use a pushrod to cycle as much air out of them as possible. I kind of like your idea of vaccuming the air out.

 

[crackerjack1957]

Some outfits reconmend against soaking or pumping them up,but i've always soaked them,usually for a day or 2 before installing them,if i'm feeling ambitious i'll use a pushrod to cycle as much air out of them as possible. I kind of like your idea of vaccuming the air out.

I bet ya been pushing bubbles out of lifters for years before roller cams were available....LoL