I finaly worked up the motivation to start tearing down my car after I heard a really loud clack coming from the engine about 4 weeks ago. I just wanted to get the valve covers off to see if I could find any clues as to what went wrong.









that is what I found. theres a gold dust-like substance lying in each head in the oil. my guess now is a spun bearing. anyone have an other ideas? its gonna be a few weeks until I am able to pull the engine out. hopefully there are parts that are still good that can be reused.

 

that sucks man.
hope the internals are still good.

i know what your going through, mine died on me a few weeks back... pulled the dip stick tube and seen some metal flakes.

 

I'd say bearing but why are your rockers so rusted?

Rusted rockers are definately not normal...that thing appears to have been starved for oil for quite a while.

 

I'd be pretty pissed if I had a 383 that looked like that.

 

I dont know why the rockers are rusted. the engine ate oil like a fat kid with mcdonald's fries. I had to put a quart in ever 250-500 miles. the car has sat for a total of 6 months in the past 10 months though so maybe they rusted from that. I know the pulleys other metal surfaces started to rust when the car sat for 4 months straight. I just hope I can clean it off and they'll be ok.

yeah, I was pretty pissed when it happened. ive calmed down since then and right now I just want to get rid of it. I hate this car and should've torn it apart and sold it the last time it broke and left me stranded. nothing but problems, I dont think I have a good thing to say about it.