OH Dear!!!

I found the cause of the screeching noise and it was a white metal bearing as suspected

I dropped the sump today and found the big end bearing caps on 5 and 6 were BLUE !!

When I pulled the caps there were no shells in there? When I pushed the rods up I recovered what looked like 2 shells, but these were only about 10 thou thick and they were melted to the point where the metal had moulded itself outside the journal and down the side of the crank. With these two caps removed the engine was still tight so I loosened all the others and it got better, but still not normal. So the mains be be in trouble as well ?
The crank journal MAY be recoverable but from what I have seen today, if I cant find some +20 shells it may be trashed. And I will need two new Chevy rods at least. Thats a bummer because the Chevy 5700 rods have been modified extensively to suit my engine. There is metal everywhere in the sump. Its settled on every horizontal surface I said to my mate when we pulled the bottom off "I would be vary happy if I saw this and was a miner panning for white metal"

So I've now shelved my plans to be running next January and have moved the date to next July / August for shakedowns if this crank can be saved??
In the meantime the engine will come back down AGAIN to the last nut and bolt for a thorough chemical clean of everything. The block will be crack tested and oil system will be chemically cleaned and flushed. If I'm very lucky the crank will be useable and I'll have to buy some more rods and get them modified to match what I have done with the other Chevy rods. On the UP side I'm happy that all the rods are still INSIDE the engine where they should be, so that shows they are up to the job at the moment

I'm no stranger now to having to take the odd break to rebuild and modify / improve during my quest to find the 8 second pass from the Rover V8 ! So I'll get my head down over the next 6-7 months and try to make the engine even better ! I'm not sure that anyone has gone this far with the Rover engine now. She pushing over 600hp with god knows how much torque now. All I know is that the BIG Wheelie run would have easily been my sub 9.5 or better. So I guess I should have just one more attempt at rebuilding to see if that 8 is in there somewhere??

Regard to all

Pel