Sand in my motor?

[Undercover87T]

My girlfriend is an investigator for an insurance company.

I ran this by her.

She says if you have fire and theft insurance minimum (comprehensive) that it is covered.

They will have to check the motor for any other damage to clear you. An autopsy per say.

As long as it doesn’t show damage that was caused by something other than the sand your claim should be good.

She says to tell the shop to NOT do anything else to the motor until the appraiser can come look at it.

It will be treated as a vandalism.

Good luck

D

Thanks for the info. The motor is completely disassembled but has not been cleaned in any way. Sand is still sitting in the head, etc. Car has full coverage on a collector car policy with agreed value. Car was finished before kirbans and i was getting documentation together to have an appraisal done to up the agreed value on it.

 

[TRICKSIXPA]

I still think its gonna be a hard sell to the insurance adjuster. I've seen other cases where there was bad gas used in a car and the gas station got nailed but there were more than one damaged vehicle. Biggest thing you have to remember is an insurance company is only out to make money not pay it out. Im curious to see what the oil pump looks like if those sand particles went through there it must have torn the pocket up. Good luck Jordan!!

 

[deezdad]

Devils advocate but wouldn't alot of people that had no fear of karma dump sand into their
own motor to get an insurance co funded rebuild? Curious how it shakes out & hoping for the best no one diserves that kinda shit.

 

[BARRACUDA1968]

They may want a police report and that's fine. It doesn't have to be when and where the vandalism took place. I would bet the word of the engine builder will be sufficient for the claims adjuster.

 

[we4Mateo]

That's a lot of material in there. A lot of these explanations are plausible but Bison is right, there is no way this stuff has been floating around for 6000 miles. I may have been in the cast somewhere and let loose recently or someone helped it get in the motor. I would think if someone dumped a few teaspoons of material in the engine you would have heard it grinding it's way through the motor initially?

If there is that much in the motor I wonder what the filter looks like. If the engine builder determines it's sand and not media material I would think you have a case for vandalism through your insurance company. I would call them and at least have an adjuster come out if you think it's sand. Just because you didn't catch the vandal doesn't mean it wasn't vandalized. Your insurance should cover you.

I've seen old flathead Fords that would keep casting sand in them in weird places and stay for a relatively long period of time. I doubt this is the case, but it is possible that it's been in there a while. Either way, go vandalism and get the new motor done.

 

[aminga]

Ask Aminga about blast media. He killed an engine because the EGR port had some left in it. The other possible is which antifreeze you used. The old conventional antifreeze had silica in it and would do the same thing if you blew a head gasket or even a minor intake leak.

If it was in the EGR it wouldn't have run for more than 20 minutes after it was put together. The intake was spotless too but that EGR has enough twists and turns it will hold on to some unless you blow it clean.

And the cylinder walls will look like this

 

[TTipe]

I removed a lot of core sand in my LC2 block tucked in above the rear main saddle after it had run 30k. There were no issues, I started taking it apart to start making power. Your cylinder bores show 2 different gowges, both from sand and metal. The sand gowges are wider and deeper than the metal. Cylinder blocks from the 80's sometimes had large amounts of core sand left in them. Is the rust in the bore wall picture from the use of alcohol? Sometimes the sand let go and other times it hung around for a long time. The sand was loosened up and not discovered, got into the oil system, partially impeded the oil flow, your oil wedge was reduced (as shown by your bearing surfaces). I spent many hours removing core sand from my LC2 block which was sonniced (for bore wall thickness), magnfluxed and certain dimensions were verified before it was ever used in an engine build. This was a virgin block. Casting removal processes have gotten much better over the years. At factory 36 in Flint Michigan (home of the LC2) the cores were put into a rack and vibrated at various frequencies, then blown out with high pressure oil/air and washed. Sometimes the core sand still remained.

 

[bison]

The sand is on top of the head. How did sand get up there? It has zero to do with casting remnant sand. I don't see how that is even part of this discussion. The block wasn't a new block when he started with it 6000 miles ago. Its almost 30 years old and probably ran most of the time in that 30 years. The sand didn't fall out of the valve covers and it didn't come from the top of the heads.


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[TTipe]

There are 2 different score types in the cylinder bore. One looks like metal/dirt and the other sand (by depth and width). Dirt/metal in the engine could also cause the shallow scores. Where did the oil wedge go on the bearings? Typically crank flex shows on #3 first (why such a uniform appearance on the bearings-lead worn off ?) Could sand/dirt/metal have affected the oil system production and reduced the bearing film thickness? I spoke incorrectly in my prior post. My new LC2 block (25525109) went 30k (was removed at 37k miles) from my Regal because I was hungry for more performance. I dug a lot of core sand out of that block at 37K miles prior to rebuild. A co-worker of mine sold his 87 "T" due to excess core sand in the engine. The quality was better on the 3.8L than on the 4.1L. Certain folks on this site made mention of excess core sand found in the older 4.1L blocks which I know to be true. I hope the person involved gets a new engine out of all this regardless of what happened.

 

[bison]

There are 2 different score types in the cylinder bore. One looks like metal/dirt and the other sand (by depth and width). Dirt/metal in the engine could also cause the shallow scores. Where did the oil wedge go on the bearings? Typically crank flex shows on #3 first (why such a uniform appearance on the bearings-lead worn off ?) Could sand/dirt/metal have affected the oil system production and reduced the bearing film thickness? I spoke incorrectly in my prior post. My new LC2 block (25525109) went 30k (was removed at 37k miles) from my Regal because I was hungry for more performance. I dug a lot of core sand out of that block at 37K miles prior to rebuild. A co-worker of mine sold his 87 "T" due to excess core sand in the engine. The quality was better on the 3.8L than on the 4.1L. Certain folks on this site made mention of excess core sand found in the older 4.1L blocks which I know to be true. I hope the person involved gets a new engine out of all this regardless of what happened.

i agree with your assessment of the scoring and main bearings. The first pic displays a lot of sand that entered the engine from above the drain back holes. It can't get to that point without being put there.



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[TTipe]

What about checking the "sand" with a magnet. This is a combination of materials.

 

[Undercover87T]

Was already checked with a magnet. Not magnetic.

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[TTipe]

How was the crank ground?

 

[TTipe]

Was already checked with a magnet. Not magnetic.

Posted from the TurboBuick.Com mobile app

Bearing material lead / aluminum is not magnetic. The stock crank bearings have high imbeddibilty so that stuff could have bearing material in it. Also if the crank was not ground to take the "fur" off that could be in the "sand". Your bearing material went somewhere.

 

[Undercover87T]

Its possible. Crank was 20/20.

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[Undercover87T]

Insurance adjuster came out and looked at the motor last week. He agreed it was a malisious act that destroyed the motor so it looks like most of the rebuild costs should be covered. Engine builder gave him a written estimate for the rebuild. Should know more details in the next few days.

 

[EVIL]

Great news. I’m glad it worked out for you.

D

 

[turbobitt]

i agree with your assessment of the scoring and main bearings. The first pic displays a lot of sand that entered the engine from above the drain back holes. It can't get to that point without being put there.



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Sand used for casting wouldn't look like beach sand and probably more like red clay. Sand being on the top of the head bolt areas under the valve cover look suspiciously convenient to poured from a bottle.
Allan G.

 

[Undercover87T]

Great news. I’m glad it worked out for you.

D

Me too, especially when I saw the estimate on paper . Not going to be a quick process by any means .

 

[ShaunDonWe2]

good sh!t