What are the odds....

What are the odds that I caused my engine to munch a rod bearing in the process of changing the distributor?

Background:  Recently changed the distributor in my 1985 Chevrolet C30 Dooley, as sort of chronicled here:

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/how-do-you-guys-with-big-trucks-work-under-the-hoo/167436/page1/

I finally got around to getting the timing right today, and my neighbor, a one-time mechanic for a foreign nation's military was visiting when I started it up.  The hard clanking that I attributed to rattly exhaust parts too close to the frame, he attributed to a rod knock.  He slid under the truck and said he was pretty sure it was one of the back two bearings. 

I was pretty much disbelieving.  He went home and later I started it again, and got the timing right.  It was running nice and smooth for a bit, good oil pressure and all that, when it suddenly slowed a bit, and started squeaking and clanking.  Gah!  Could he be right?  I mean, maybe some dirt/grit fell in when I pulled the old distributor?

Engine is an ATK reman installed by the PO back in the mid 90's?  Crazy few miles on it, and I just use it when I need a big truck, which isn't all that often, really.

I would say zero, but I await to hear from more learneded persons than I. 

Temporarily un-rattle the exhaust parts by jamming a tire or something up in there and repeat test.

Drain the oil and filter, and fire it up.  If its a rod, it will get very noisy, and it really doesn't matter that its running without oil.  If it doesn't get noisy, running it for ten seconds with no oil won't hurt it.

Now- a rod bearing won't make a ton of noise at idle, unless its well and truly berkeleyed.  As a matter of fact, the big rod noise you hear is quite often the sound of the piston hitting the cylinder head.  So, hot oil, idle will be quiet, snap throttle you will hear a rat-a-tat-tat.

If its a big block Chev, you will sometimes get a deeper thump from the mains as they get a bit worn.

Are you sure the distributor is seated completely?  The oil pump drive shaft runs off the bottom of the distributor gear.

Patientzero said:

Are you sure the distributor is seated completely?  The oil pump drive shaft runs off the bottom of the distributor gear.

Yes!  Distributor is fully seated and the engine is making normal oil pressure.

I'd remove the accessory belts, check the inspection cover bolts on the bell housing, and the exhaust parts. 
 

Then fire it up and see if the noise is still there. 
 

is it a manual or auto?

Check your flexplate. They crack around the torque converter bolt holes and rattle and knock like a bad bearing.

If it's not an automatic, forget you read this..

Automatic.  TH400.

I just watched a few vids on youtube.  It doesn't sound anything like the flexplate issues I heard, and if it's a rod knock, it went from non-existent to crazy bad the instant I cranked the engine after the distributor install.  It's a hard, metallic hammering sound, periodic, but not constant.  It will pretty much go away if I rev the engine up north of 1500 rpm.  I will go after it tomorrow and try to eliminate possible metal on metal contact related to the exhaust.  There's one place where the pipe is pretty much resting on the crossmember, but the sound does seem to be coming from the rear of the engine and not there at the pipe.  Also, it's a double-wall run of pipe where the pipe is inside another pipe (air-gap pipe?) and the outer is loose on the inner, and it will rattle pretty good, but I don't see that making the hard hammering noise I'm hearing.   I'll take a look at the flexplate too, just to rule that out.

I've never seen dually spelled dooley. I'm now questioning which one of us is right.

I'm gonna call coincidence.

If you want to be sure, get an oil filter cutter and sacrifice your oil filter to the altar of education.  If it's full of highly metallic oil-colored nail polish or, worse, big flakes and stuff, then yeah there's bearing damage going on.

Appleseed said:

I've never seen dually spelled dooley. I'm now questioning which one of us is right.

I'm pretty sure the tag in the glovebox has a list of vehicle options and it uses the term "Big Dooley."  That, or I was drunk and imagined it or something.  I'm going to go look it up right now.

Edit:  Yup!  It was Chevrolet's own term for Dual Rear Wheels on the one-ton trucks.  Found it in the wiki, fourth paragraph in the third gen section:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_C/K

1988RedT2 said:

Appleseed said:

I've never seen dually spelled dooley. I'm now questioning which one of us is right.

I'm pretty sure the tag in the glovebox has a list of vehicle options and it uses the term "Big Dooley."  That, or I was drunk and imagined it or something.  I'm going to go look it up right now.

Edit:  Yup!  It was Chevrolet's own term for Dual Rear Wheels on the one-ton trucks.  Found it in the wiki, fourth paragraph in the third gen section:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_C/K

I guess that's more evidence that Chevy ownership is harmful to your brain and stuff.

The only time I have ever seen "Dooley" (besides people who mean to say "Dualie", kind of like people who say "doxen" instead of "Dachshund") was on a dog poop holding device we had in the 80s when we had a dog, which was called the Doggie Dooley.  It was basically a 5 gallon size flip-lid trash can for dog poop, nothing more involved than that.  Also, you got a 5 gallon brick of dog poop to throw away every now and then.

Kiefer was the best dog, BTW.  For as dumb as he was sometimes (Hey there is a dog next door, I must BARK CONTINUOUSLY UNTIL I AM HOARSE AND THEN BARK SOME MORE THERE IS A DOG THERE AND IT IS THE SAME DOG WHO HAS LIVED NEXT DOOR FOR TEN YEARS) he was also really smart in other ways.  Also, there was the time he burped exactly like Barney from The Simpsons, and my mom yelled at me, and I was like "no way that was the dog!"

Since there no sports tonight (or anytime in the near future), I was thinking about this problem. 

Have you checked the distributor to make sure the cap and rotor are still where they are supposed to be, and that the advance mechanism isn't binding? I'd also check plugs and firing  order just to be sure I didn't have something crossed or routed in a way that could induce a misfire.

It might be worth firing it up in the dark to see if any wires are shorting out once it warm up causing a misfire leading to rough running and strange noises? 

while it could be a coincidence, and it really is mechanical, I'd start by looking for sources related to ignition, or anything that was touched while replacing the distributor .

Are you sure it's not spelled Dualie?

I've always written it as dually.

GM sales literature was "Big Dooley". He's spelling it right.

I'm going to take a stance here and say there is zero chance you harmed a bearing on the engine with you distributor swap. It's not like you poured a quart of sand down the hole. You have something else making noise.

I would just like to point out that if you have a Ford truck with dual rear wheels, you can't call it a "Dooley".  You have to use "duallie" or "dualie" or "dually."

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

What if you have a 9" Posi in the Ford?

Knurled. said:

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

What if you have a 9" Posi in the Ford?

Ford 9" Posi is cute and all, but if it's not a Chevy, it can't be a "Big Dooley."

This particular truck has the Dana 70HD.

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

You missed it entirely... "Posi" is a Chevy trade name.  Literally no other vehicle but a Chevy can have a Posi.

1988RedT2 said:

Appleseed said:

I've never seen dually spelled dooley. I'm now questioning which one of us is right.

I'm pretty sure the tag in the glovebox has a list of vehicle options and it uses the term "Big Dooley."  That, or I was drunk and imagined it or something.  I'm going to go look it up right now.

Edit:  Yup!  It was Chevrolet's own term for Dual Rear Wheels on the one-ton trucks.  Found it in the wiki, fourth paragraph in the third gen section:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_C/K

This is correct.  The actual term is dually or duallie but some marketing genius at GM decided it should be dooley.  I guess the "Big Dooley" thing is supposed to be a character-type association like "The General" or "Top Kick".