Lost oil pressure and then a broken starter bolt
 

weel todays trip sucked. Took the wife and daughter out fot there first ride on our new 272 baja. I rebuild the motor over and the interior over the last year. Me and a buddy did a shake down run a few weeks ago and everything went well. Motor is a 502 BBC carbed, Hy roller cam.

Then today we are out running for a maybe 30 -40 minutes with eveerthing looking good.Oil pressure was at 40 psi I was not beating on the motor, keeping the rpm between 2500-3300rpm. turned to head back in when I noticed the oil pressure at zero. No buzzer . Opened the hatch some and thought i heard a tapping, and shut the motor down. It maybe ran 30-45 seconds before I shut it down.. Thought it my be a loose wire or bad sending unit, checked the wire and looks ok. went to start the motor and it sounded awful. Hit ithe starter 2 times same thing. Checked the starter and found it was a little loose, no biggie. went to tighted the starter bolts and one fell in my hand. so now there is no way to see, while out on the water if the no oil pressure was from the wire/sending unit. Got towed in and called it a day.

so now I need to get the broken bolt out, hopefully it will hve a nipple where I can get a vice grip on it. It not I will need to pull the motor to get the broken bolt out. then I will have to a run down on finding out my oil pressure issue.

so first the bolt then the oil issue. Oh, and my oil was still on the dip stick and still looking new. I'll pull the distributor and spin the oil pump with a drill and see if I get anything. Then I check my oil line routeing, Put a mech oil gauge when checking. Man I hope I don't need to pull the motor. Anyone have any steps to check out please post. Looking for any information. Thanks just need to vent some.

Sounds like you've got a good plan of attack. Use a mechanical gauge and a drill assisted priming tool.

You might be able to get a stud extractor tool in there to get that broken starter bolt out?? I've got one like this style....

[ATTACH=CONFIG]501084[/ATTACH]

Definitely sucks.

That doesn't sound good! Zero oil pressure, tapping or knocking sound, and then you busted a starter bolt trying to crank it over. Before messing with the starter bolt, I would see if you can pull all the plugs and turn the motor over by hand. It might be locked up. Also pull the oil filter and have someone cut it open to check for debris. There is a very good chance the engine will be coming out, so no point wasting time trying to extract a starter bolt in the boat. Pulling an engine is really not that big of a deal - a reinforced ceiling joist and a 6K chain hoist will pull it out, or a friend with a forklift.

Good luck with it.

I agree. I'd pull the plugs and try turning it over with a breaker bar by hand. If you don't have a oil filter cutting tool, I've opened them up by using a chisel around the seam line towards the gasket. Work it all the way around and it will pop open, and u can pull the filter element out.

Thanks guys. Yea the motor is coming out no way around it. . There is no way to get the piece of the broken starter bolt out without flipping the motor over. I was just praying for the easiest way out of this mess. After fixing the broken bolt we'll put it on the engine break in stand and see what we got.

maybe water in the cylinders also buy an oil filter cutter tool I sell them. since i can not post pics I put the link up.

http://www.longacreracing.com/catalo...=1043&catid=17

I sell alot of their tools and can make you a deal on one or any of what they carry.

Like some other folks said, try turning it over by hand before putting it back in. Zero oil pressure will cause a catastrophic failure in a hurry.