I checked the oil today and found a little bit of very fine metal shavings in my oil all in the sudden, one thing after another with this piece of ****.

Calm down... Everything will be ok :) . But, you might need to find a new engine soon though... :(

Lol that engine doesn't have very many miles on it at all, I checked it again and the sludgy crap I saw pretty much dissolved when I touched it, not sure what that's about. I do have a HV oil pump so I wonder if my distributor gear is wearing. I checked the oil the other day, didn't see any of that. Then I drove it half a mile and now I see it, engine doesn't run any different. I also noticed a very tiny amount of moisture in the oil fill cap and PCV valve, but there's no coolant or water in the oil? I don't get it. But, the PCV valve does get a lot of rain water around it so that might be what that's from.

I put a HV oil pump in my Bronco. I hope they dont wear dizzy gears prematurely.

Last I heard they don't wear much at all sitting still. }>

LOL that's what I heard too, the grey stuff I saw when I touched it, it disappeared, sound like a little moisture on the dipstick to me. The very few metal shavings I saw you almost can't see they are so small, I'll get a little bit of oil out of the pan tomorrow and look at it, that engine could have 5,000 miles on it for all I know, sure runs like it does. It can't have more than 40,000.

If it's cool weather where you live and you make alot of short trips, moisture can build up in the cap, under the PCV valve and even on the dipstick. Getting the engine up to operating temp will clean alot of that out.

Not sure how they mount on your engine but you could take off the dipstick tube and clean it out then blow it out with compressed air. That would eliminate any chance of your mystery muck coming from something inside the dipstick.

Well, I took a oil sample from the pan today, that grey stuff looks like carbon or a little bit of dirty oil mixing with the new oil, I did however, wipe the oil off the dipstick to my finger and took a magnet to it, a few tiny pieces attached to the magnet, so small I could barely see them. So it's not the bearings, as those have an aluminum finish to them. This hadn't happened until I used the Chevron 10w-30 in it, it's got about 25 miles on that oil now.I normally use the Shell Rotella T 15W-40 oil, IIRC the Rotella has 1250 ppm zinc and the Chevron 10w-30 that I used has around 800, not enough for the flat tappet cam. it also could be my distributor gear, I suppose I'll check that out. But I think I am going to drain that oil and put Rotella back in it. Good news it my engine is as clean as it can get inside now lol.

Did you change your distributor gear from stock or something?

Props on using Rotella T 15w40, I have used it for years in my truck and it has never given me any issues. Very good oil. What oil filter do you use?



Oh and I haven't done a thing to my truck this week, though Thursday I will be fueling it up a bit and running some errands in it. I might play around with the wiring for the MSD a little to clean things up some more.

No, distributor gear is stock, I always use Purolator filters, you couldn't pay me a million dollars to use a SCAM I mean FRAM or anything cheap like that. We've used Shell Rotella T 15w-40 in every car we have for years and it's been great, even in mazda 4 bangers it goes in them too lol.

Added a vacuum gauge to the truck today, as explained in Dad's Truck Build. This vacuum gauge lived in my '72 F250 for years, and is even wired (by me) for lighting, although I didn't hook it up today as I don't plan to be driving the truck much at night in the near future.

Speaking of lighting, I did start a thread on Bright Dash Lights as mine aren't, so I'm looking for solutions that work. Several have chimed in with what works for them, but if any of the rest of you have a magic bullet for getting good, bright gauges I'd appreciate the input. And, toward that end I did discover today that the bezel that sits over the gauges is what the light bounces off of in order to get to the gauge fronts. But, more importantly, every one of the 5 or so bezels I have are brown where the light strikes it. IOW, the plastic has turned, either from the heat or the light itself, and won't reflect much light. Further, the light it does reflect won't be white but a sickly yellow. So, I'm thinking through the options for how to make the back of the bezel reflective, and input (on that thread) would be helpful.

I wont be touchin my truck all week. But I will be researchin engine swaps to see what my best plan of attack will be.

Last I heard you were rebuilding the carb. What happened? What did I miss?

Its still givin me fits. If i cant get the engine tuned right it may just eat itself. And iv been wantin to do a diesel swap since my dream truck sold out from under me. Got my choices narrowed down now just doin the figurin to see which will be the end result.

So we looked at the oil sample I took, looks like a lot of brass, VERY fine brass. What the hell is brass in a 351W? it's too bright and shiny to be copper or anything like that.

I'm gonna take another oil sample tomorrow.