Ford Lehman Top End Lubrication

120 HP F.L. (2715E) No lubrication to the top of the motor. The front 4 rockers and pushrods are dry, dusty and rusty. No sign of flowing oil even at 2,000 rpm with the valve cover off. Good oil pressure (60) I had replaced the rocker shafts last year, they were plugged and worn from lack of lubrication. I had good oil flow for a short time after the new shafts were installed, Twenty hours run time found the front four valves TOTALLY out of adjustment, in fact the front pushrod had fallen out of place. I have the "SABRE LEHMAN POWER" operators manual with parts identification. It is missing page A11 which is also A12. does anyone have one?

The best advice I have received, including from Brian Smith, is that the bearing or bearings on the cam have slipped or turned and blocked oil passages. The engine has to come out! dang!!

By the way. When I had the valve cover off yesterday and found the problem with the front 4 valves. I removed the old adjusting screws as they were beat down and nearly flat on bottom (knob end). I used 4 new adjusters on those front 4 valves and tightening them down until the shoulder of the bold was right down tight to the rocker and the valve was still way out of adjustment and almost "floppy". This indicates to me that the cam or at least the lifter is also badly
worn.

Single engine , quite a bit of working room but the generator would have to be moved to pull the cam (Probably not possible). Brian Smith says that to get the lifters out, the engine most probably would have to be turned upside down. This would be almost as difficult as pulling the engine. Local diesel specialist (trusted) tells me that the new cam bearings are nearly impossible to install in the boat.

So this week the process begins. If there is any interest in the entire process, including pictures, commentary and cost figures I will document it for this forum,
otherwise I will just suffer in peace.

pete

Ski would be much better to comment on this, but if you have to pull the engine, the cam, pull/push cam journals out, probably line bore the new journals, I would do the crank as well.


David

Many of us have a boat like yours with this motor. Would you be so kind as to take some photos while your going through the process of engine removal etc.? Thanks! Good luck.


Dave

I would do a remanufactured long block. It is less labor and time down.

Please take photos and add comments.

I would think blowing back w air may unblock the plugged passage.
Also if the engine is like Buick straight eights the rocker arm shaft is hollow and serves as an oil line.
I’d disassemble everything on the top end before thinking of pulling the engine.
Then if it were mine I’d run some SeaFoam in the lube oil for a few (1 to 3 hrs) time (while lubing manually) and then change oil right after. Then perhaps run a small amount of SeaFoam to up your detergency of your oil. Or change to a higher detergent oil.
And because of upper end parts wear running w/o oil at least adjust the valves after full oil flow has been restored.
Have you been running non-detergent oil?

ben2go said:

I would do a remanufactured long block. It is less labor and time down.

Click to expand...

I would tend to agree. You should at least investigate availability and cost.
Our with the old in with the new in one day.
A lot less down time.
A rebuild that needs a lot of extra machining and parts can creep up in cost.

What does oil analysis show?
A spun cam bearing is possible but I have never seen it happen, usually crank or rod bearings.
I would find a print showing oil flow and trace the passage ways.
If dry you will have a ton of metal filings somewhere.

If you had to replace shafts due to this problem and the new parts are trashed again after 20 hours then you never fixed the problem. I know you said you had good oil flow after replacing the parts but if that were true then what happened again?

Since there are probably numerous bad parts AND you've had all that metal in the engine I would seriously consider a reman long block. OR once the engine is out pull it all apart and check everything. The last thing I'm sure you would want to do is replace a bunch of stuff and find out later that there was other damage.

Ken

I'll try to answer the first 8 replys here. Lots of good ideas and suggestions! Thanks guys

Oil analysis showed lots of iron after I replaced the shafts. Changed the oil and cut the amount from 336 to 159, from red zone to yellow caution. I like the long block idea but my specialist assures me a quick turnaround, around 10 days. Would love a drawing of the oil route but like I said in my O.P. those pages are missing from my manual, I'll get a copy from American Diesel on Monday.

Like Ken pointed out, The first fix actually fixed nothing. Maybe had some lubrication for a while but nothing fixed. Therefore why bother blowing out the passages again, especially now that I can not properly adjust the valves. Something is seriously worn down there.

David, not sure about the crank and journals. For sure they will all be checked against specs and replaced as needed. After all, there was a lot of metal floating around in there. All the other metals in the oil analysis were tiny, most less than 1. Also no contaminants. (almost)

The engine really runs well. "Kicking" the throttle fairly hard to kick the stern around produces almost no smoke, only a little smoke at cold start. Leads me to believe the pistons, rings and sleeves are good but they will be checked.

For sure I will have a new oil pump installed and just for fun, a new starter. Probably the gear driven water pump should be changed also, just because it is easy when the engine is on the rack.

Diesel shop rate is $139.00 per hour, Marina will charge $75 an hour for the in and out. I'm hoping to get the engine out of the shop for around $7,000 and the in and out for less than $3000. Bomac gets $10,000 for a rebuild plus shipping of maybe another $2,000, American Diesel doesn't do whole engines anymore.

The $200 diagnosis fee will be waived by the diesel guys if they get the job. They made the 150 mile round trip as basically goodwill and I guess "job security".

So far I am into the job for $0. Guess that will start changing quickly. I will keep a good list and document everythingWill attach pictures as soon as something starts happening and I figure out how to do it.

By the way, FYI. I live in Northern Wisconsin, the boat is in Oconto, Wisconsin, about 85 miles south of my home. The diesel guys shop is in Green Bay, about 60 miles south of the boat.

pete

Plan engine mounts and a damper plate, maybe a dripless shaft seal and a gallon of paint to paint the bilge. New belts (tough to put on) and new fuel hoses.

If the rockers weren't getting oil, some of the lifters were probably not getting oil and the cam lobes get oil from the lifters. So the cam could be shot, the lifter holes worn enough to need bushings and all the machine work to do that. Plus all that iron in the oil, circulating thru your bearings and gears...

The engine may not be worth repairing. A short block, as other have said, may be the least cost.

Really can't tell much til you get the motor out and torn down. It's got to come out anyway and get flipped to do cam stuff.

Suspect a cam bearing or even crank main bearing shell was installed wrong, blocking oil flow.

Maybe too much sealant on a head gasket blocked an oil hole?

But you seem to have confirmed that cam/follower geometry is screwed up, so that means a motor pull.

I wouldn't deal with all the diagnosis and downtime. I'd pull it and do a long block. They are available. It's going to be way less labor costs when done. I've never pulled and rebuilt a diesel, but I have done several gas engines. It was always cheaper to go reman. I'm not sure why the boat needs to come out of the water unless the marina gets rough or the boat's structure can't handle a jig to lift the engine out and move it back. That is the way we lift engines out through the cabin floor. Then out the back door to the deck to be picked out by a crane or boom truck.

Definitely a long block, you need a fresh head.

Camshaft change on board.

Had a similar problem 2 years ago. Could not keep the forward valves in adjustment one minute tight the next noisy and loose. I lifted the engine and rotated it in the engine room. Installed new camshaft and lifters etc. The lifters were badly worn and in one axis as the lifter rotated the adjustment became loos or tight. I turned the engine over and measured the stroke of the pushrods a few times and found one only moved 50 thou at times. The camshaft also had very little ovality. I've had the engine out the 1st time to change the oil pump, and the second to change the camshaft and followers etc. Doing the oil pump I built a 6x6 pillar lift with a harbour Freight electric winch and it worked well. The second time the guys I got to do it elected to use there own technique with a thick walled iron pipes. All in all the 6" square hoist I made was successful and with the 12" winch easy to use.
The photos below show the engine going back after the oil pump change. ( I needed help with that pulled back out) And the camshaft change I just got a couple of local wannabe mechanics . I also attached a picture of a worn cam follower.

Carbon fouled valves will not close all the way and will seem like the valve is out of adjustment. If the valve hangs open just a smidge, it can cause water to be sucked back into the cylinder and sieze the engine. Everything you have posted sounds like that is a possibility and the oiling problem could have caused the valve(s) to coke up with carbon and hang open from running hot due to the lack of oil cooling the valves. I've seen this on gas engines before. I can only assume it's possible on diesels as well. I may be repeating myself. I'm not feeling so well this evening.

THis might be stupid but Just have to ask. Those push rods can be installed wrong and when done this way it will block oil from coming up. They the shafts have to go in the right way and it's not in the manuel or it blocks the oil to half the top. Seen it happen. Just make sure they are in there right because it's easy to get them in backass baclwards and then no oil to the top.