Help Someone dropped my oil pump in into my engine!

[Tracy 69]

I hope someone will have an answer for me.  My 69 GTO was at a school technical shop and someone started the car and the oil pump pin dropped into the engine while running. Of course there was no oil in the engine because the oil pump pin was in the engine . This seized up the engine, which had to be taken apart to remove the pin.

MY QUESTION:  What is the least of the damage that would occur to vehicle in this situation?   What is the most damage that could occur?  I do not knoe how long vehicle was running w/o oil before engine seized up.

PLEASE I NEED AN ANSWER!   Thank you for your time  Tracy

[Frosty]

Hi Tracy 69

Wow. What a situation. I'll start with the worst case scenario and then anything else would be an improvement. The longer the engine was running without oil, the worse the damage is likely to be.

Worst case is damage to the engine is so extensive to the point that the block is totally unusable, virtually everything else  inside the engine can be replaced (albeit it won't be cheap). The lack of oil can damage virtually every moving metal-to-metal  part and/or contact surface. That includes:

1. Crankshaft/ crank bearings

2. Connecting rods/bearings/crankshaft

3. Camshaft/cam bearings

4. cam/lifter/pushrod/rocker/spring/valve stem

5. Piston rings/cylinder walls

6. cam shaft/distributor gear

7. piston/wrist pin/connecting rod

8. cam shaft/crankshaft timing chain and gears

9. Oil pump gears

 

In my opinion, the worst thing would be the scoring of the cylinder walls by the piston rings is so bad that the block can not bored out safely or for some inexplicable reason the block is cracked,. If either thing happens, then this block is useless. All other engine parts can be replaced with aftermarket parts or quality used parts. If this is a numbers matching block and you are doing a 100-point restoration on your car and the block is damaged beyond repair, the value of your car/restoration has gone down significantly.

As I said before, all other internal parts for a 400 engine are readily available from the aftermarket. I recommend you find a qualifed engine builder and machine shop in your area, they will be needed to evaluate, rebuild, and perform any necessary machine work to bring your engine back.

I think if you are very lucky, cylinder wall scoring is negligible and the block doesn't have to be bored out, and only the bearings are damaged. The crank and connecting rods do not need to be machined. The camshaft, lifters, push rods, rockers and valves are not damaged. The oil pump is still usable. The distributor is undamaged. My best case scenario would be you need to replace bearings and piston rings with no other machine work or parts replacement. This still requires the motor to be completely torn down, inspected, and re-assembled.

I hope that helps Tracy. Let us know how we can help. Also let us know what you find out.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Frosty