tap the hole and put a AN pipe plug in the hole.......

 

http://web.camaross.com/forums/showt...l+gallery+ball

 

My '94 had an expansion plug, not a bearing, the sealed power rebuild kit replaced it with an expansion plug as well.

 

Would the absence of this ball show up when priming the engine with an oil pressure gauge attached to the China wall by showing very low oil pressure?

Jake

 

As suggested and mentioned already, put a small expansion plug in there to take the place of the steel ball. 2 fellow engine builders here locally do that. I do that. Chad Golen does that.

I thought every engine builder did that and that is a common practice and thus why you don't see mention of the steel ball.

If the plug is not there I don't think you'll see less oil pressure, but a great amount of oil will bypass the oil filter.

Karl Ellwein
Ellwein Engines

 

The last time I was at the local U-Pick salvage yard, I saw several of the smaller , iron head versions of the LT1 (L99?) in a couple of wrecked taxis and other GM cars. One was even laying in the dirt alongside one of the cars (from which I grabbed the intake manifold and timing cover). I'll bet they have the ball in the oil gallery too, because the other parts seem pretty much identical.

 

The ball is definitely a tighter fit thasn the plug, I tried both.

If the ball is missing then the pressure will not buil correctly. This would show up during priming I am pretty sure.

 

ah man now you got me paranoid about mine being in there. I hope the builder put something there when they did my shortblock

 

I had to go to the bone yard and find one in an old block we used two push rods that were laying around to tamp it out. when you take rear main cap off you can see the ball sittting down in the oil passage about 2 inches. I took it to the machine shop and it measures 0.0473 inches I hope this thred helps someone.

 

I think you're on the right track but I believe that the number is .473 instead of .0473. That's a good number to remember.

 

My motor is together...and I don't have any idea if I have this passage plugged! I am assuming it is not plugged, so am I putting my motor at risk by ignoring it or should I just pull the pan, windage tray, rear main seal, and rear main off again to inspect this situation?

 

I was talking this over the other day with a fellow racer/engine builder. He did not know the ball/plug was in the LT1 and now was not sure if a short block he built for a customer had that ball/plug. We were thinking that no ball/plug may be the cause of "high" oil pressure, (not low), in a customer's motor.
If that ball/plug is not there I would think that you would simply be bypassing the oil filter and oil will be getting supplied to the galleys fine otherwise. And by bypassing the oil filter you would have higher oil pressure as indicated at the galley tap from top/back of block.

If you don't pull the motor just change the oil much more frequently.

Karl

 

Well, the motor has not been installed yet. I just don't really want to pull the rear main seal off and then have to go by another one if I don't need to do so! I would hate to be the guy who has to find out what happens if you forget about this ball bearing or plug in the oil passage.

 

Also...according to the original post: The bearing should be in a hole on the passenger side of the block. Mine is on the DRIVER'S side of the block. I just pulled it off and looked at it and I have no clue how I would get that bearing out of there without pulling the bottom end apart.
Can anyone verify that it should indeed be in the passengers side and not the driver's side, or if it even matters?

 

You won't need to remove the rear main seal housing. You can actually just look down the galley from the back/top of the block, (where the stock oil pressure switch threads into the block).
You could shine a flashlight down that hole and see if you can see the ball way down there at the bottom.

If you decide to take the pan off for peace of mind then you just need to get the oil pump off, then the windage tray, then the #5 main cap, (the thrust cap). Under that main cap (in the block) look in the hole that is on the oil filter side (the drivers side). The ball/plug should be about 2" down.

That galley goes directly up to the top of the block where the oil pressure switch is.

Karl