Help and opinions on type 1 rebuild.

My recently aquired 1776 wasnt broke in properly or something because there is metal in my oil and it is magnetic. That points to cam and lifter wear. It is my DD so it cant be down for long. I have never rebuilt an engine but surly some on here have. I can pay in food and beer for anyone who can help. all i know about the engine is that it is a fresh 1776. it is indeed fresh, you can see all the new seals, fresh silicone ect... so i need all of the help i can get.

part of me wants to drive it till the cam goes flat, the other half want to tear it down now to get it over with. what kind of dollar amount should i be looking at for a job like this? the cheaper the better.

If I am available when it is time I could help. I don't know much about internals but I could be a second set of hands. I could maybe also help by driving it somewhere to get fixed in my truck. Lmk.

How much metal did you find? Big pieces, fine particles, or just that metallic sheen in the oil?

right on, i knew yall would help!..

they were shavings/flakes. piled in the valve covers and some on the sump plate. no chunks, all silver magnetic, no bronze or gold shavings all silver.

Going to need a complete tear down and though cleaning.

http://bobhooversblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/thinking-small.html

Hoover good read

Could be cam, but shavings usually come from bearings. Is it losing power? Have you changed the oil to see if you get a repeat of the shavings? If you are lucky, it could be shavings from the previous problem with the engine and it just wasnt cleaned well. Do you know the builder of the engine? If it were me, I would change the oil and monitor closely. If I still got shavings, I would tear it down and take to pro flow and have him check the case. Rebuilding a bottom end without a good machinist is asking for trouble.

VW57, I changed the oil today and found significantly less metal, but there was still some.

There is no bronze material, only these silver ones. Compared to the last oil change 225 ish miles ago this looks good. No noticeable loss of power.

I added sone zink additive this time. It's probably too late though.

Possibly after the break in, the oil wasn't changed??? But who is to know.

You will see silver before bronze. If you see bronze you are really in trouble. Does your engine have oil gallery plugs? Is it a stock cam? So many possibilities at this point. If the junk is coming from the galleries, you might be able get it cleaned out. However, there is a good possibility that the life has been dramatically reduced. If you bought a fresh 1776, my guess is that you have a small investment into it. I would pull it down.

It came in a bay window. It's a dp AH case. Would the bearing material be magnetic? I leave to hike the appalachian trail in April and really need it I last till then.

Some bearings are steel backed, but I apologize. I missed the magnetic part. I tend to skip words when I'm reading from an iPhone. You may be right. The other possibility is the oil pump. Or cam gear. Are you absolutely positive they are magnetic?

On our race motor the first 3 oil changes loo terrible . after that it gets about half of what your seeing and they last 4-5 years at 20 lbs of boost. When we pull them down all bearings are fine. If it was mine I'd drive it about 4-500 miles more and do the same thing take the bottom off and look at it. And always use zinc or a oil with zinc