I have not had a good weekend. On Friday night I fired up the 502 for the first time after getting it back from the builder. He had to replace a seized piston so the engine was completely disassembled and reassembled. Knowing that I would have to retorque the heads after a heat cycle, I thought I would save some money and just reuse the riser gaskets. They looked OK. Engine ran fine. About an hour later I started to take it apart so I could get to all the head bolts for the retorque. When I pulled the starboard riser there was a bunch of water in the manifold. I pulled all the plugs and turned it over. No water came out so I squirted WD-40 in all 8 cylinders just for good measure and turned it over again to spread it around. When I pulled the port riser and manifold it was dry. I drained the oil and pulled the filter. Not good, chocolate milk. Next off was the valve covers. There was a bunch of slimy white foam inside each one and some water setting on top of the heads. I couldn't believe it all came from the reversion in the manifolds so I pulled the intake manifold. More slime and water. More importantly though, the intake gasket did not appear to have been leaking. I then pulled the oil cooler and it pressure tested OK. After reinstalling the intake manifold, I blocked off the thermostat housing, plugged the big hose from the circulation pump and pressure tested the entire engine through one of the block drains. It was Ok, too.

Today I put the motor back together and with a new filter and oil fired it up and ran it for about 15 minutes. When I drained the oil a little water first came out and then the oil actually looked pretty clean. No foam in the breathers or oil caps. What I could see in the valve covers looked good. I then refilled it with new oil again and put on another filter. I ran it again for about 20 minutes. I drained the oil again and pulled the filter.I have a hose that pulls out of the transom plug so I could watch as the oil came out. Every thing looked real good at first. Then I noticed some light colored swirls in the oil as it drained into the pan. I caught some in a clean glass jar. There are very tiny silver specks in the oil. I cut the filter open and it looked good. No sign of anything.

What is going on here? Am I losing a bearing? I had good oil pressure the whole time it was running. Should I pull the motor and check the bearings or just put oil back in it and run it and see what happens? This sucks. I had no idea that revesion would allow so much water to get in the engine. I just can't figure out how that could happen but, apparently it did.

Help!

This is hard to do as you need to look at alot .
For sure the only way to be safe is to look at the bearings and after reading all of that I think I would ,it may be fine but if its not man you've spent a ton
Cutting the filter was smart but is the oil filter bypass still there or taken out as it should be ????it may be hurt and bypassing the filter !!!!
I agree the water in exhaust should not have done that !
you could be losing a cam bearing /
P.M. me if I can Help any and great luck

I replaced the stock filter bypass with a 30lb unit. I am sick of working on it right now but by the weekend I'll probably feel like it again. I don't want to pull the motor again but, that is probably the right thing to do. I could not believe all that water came from the exhaust either. That is why I pulled the intake and leak checked everything. It has to be from the exhaust. I ruled out everything else. This is what I get for being cheap and trying to save $16 on gaskets. Oh well, B.O.A.T.

Thanks, Doug

Doug, what's the oil pressure now that you've changed the oil and filter? Any noticeable change from before? Give me a call if you'd like. 616-738-0474 home, 616-403-3962 cel. Try the home number first.

YEP B O A T ,,, BRING OUT ANOTHER THOUSAND
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yOU ARE BEING SMART TO LOOK FOR REAL,,, I get the same way on different projects ,, &^%&^
Let me know if I can help

I told you not to use that metallic paint on the inside of the block,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Actually,,, I coated the inside with Never Sieze. Someone told me it would last forever if I did that.

Sounds like a cam going away. Are you running a flat tappet cam or a roller lifter one???
I had a cam go away and it did the same thing as you are describing. I would pull the valve covers off and check the lift of the cam lobes to see if one is going flat.
If it is a solid flat tappet just see which one has too much lash.

Tinkerboater,

It's possible. It is a flat tappet. Although, yesterday when I had the intake off I looked at all the cam lobes and they looked OK. I think I am just going to put some 40wt oil in it and take it to the lake this weekend and see how the oil pressure looks. If it starts to drop I'll know something is wrong. If it stays good then I have probably dodged a bullet. I don't know if my luck is that good but, I don't want to pull the motor if there really isn't anything serious going on in there.

Thanks, Doug

Are you sure it was a riser gasket/manifold problem? I just got my boat back from the builder and thought I had a serious problem as I also had some milky oil. Come to find out I had WAY too high of internal water pressure in the motor. Would peg a 35# gauge at high speed. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.