Unpleasant surprise in 50 year old pan!

My well maintained original 72 350 with 140k has has been leaking more oil out of rear main seal and has had low oil pressure at hot idle for the past 40 years. I started disassembly this week and was looking great until I removed the pan. I attached picture of shavings.

Cylinders, heads, timing gears and main bearings look great. Any ideas?

 

Steel, casting, aluminum, plastic?

 

A magnet will tell all, but honestly there aren't many iron bits in the engine that will leave that much stuff without a big failure. Sorry to say it, but I think you'll have to take it all apart.

Devon

 

Could be aluminum or bearing material? No sparks on grinder.

 

Not magnetic

 

I'll take cam out this weekend

 

Bearing caps

 

Get that flashlight in there. We're not missing a piece of a piston skirt maybe? Whatever it is, it got crunched by the rotating assembly.

Devon

 

Pistons look great. No cylinder scoring i can see. I'll try to look closer

 

All shavings no chunks

 

good time for a big block install

 

Now now, lol. We need some stout 350 builds.

 

455 would be cheating

 

That's the spirit!.

 

Plastic timing gear teeth from original gearset.

 

Check number 7 and 8 connecting rod bearings that will tell the whole story if you have an oiling problem. Does your motor make a lot of noise on the driver side valve drain ? If so part of that could be cam bearing material.

 

I changed original timing chain n gears at about 80k looked fine.

I'll look at bearings closer tonight

 

If it was bearing material you would have known for sure, you would have had a catastrophic failure!

 

Oh, you don't have to go there guys! No big block implant needed. The 350 is quite a beast all by itself.

The 1970 350-4 was enough to scare the hell outta me on the back streets in Flint.

Devon

 

Maybe it was changed once before you did and the pan still had the remnants? Are you 1st owner?