Trainwreckinseattle

I ordered up 4 rebuild kits for this week and here is what I found.


The old Front covers were not made by Rock. In fact a few companies sold the same cover. It was a good quality unit that was proven.


In this latest shipment I found that the Front Covers and Oil Pumps had been changed. They are lazer etched with ROCK on them now. They are very poorly cast units and what follows will show the main flaw......



*** Point of concern: The groove on the front cover that is machined out to allow a large o-ring to seal between the cover and the oil pump. The new cover doesn't have a deep enough groove on the upper section, which forces the o-ring to compress more than it should. In fact it can't compress enough and it distorts the oil pump case, creating a gap in two areas. I assume this creates a larger gap between the pump gears and the face of the cover allowing oil to by-pass the system and cause lower oil pressure. I also would wonder if the o-ring would eventually split and leak due to being over compressed.


Keep in mind when you rebuild an engine you deck the block with the front cover. Now that these engines are cut, and one is half assembled it will be a huge hassle do deal with this problem, let alone try and get engines finished for delivery.....


First the old cover. You can see they machined out the groove so it is even all the way around. I have never had any issues with this cover. it fits the block well and the oil pump bolts up correctly as well. The penny shows it is even.








OK now for the NEW Rock cover.... You can easily see the different type of casting. Sand casting? The groove is cast and left alone instead of being machined out. Also the holes don't line up well. The cover had to be tapped onto the dowels on the block to fit. The pictures of the cover that is installed shows the cover fully installed with all bolts torqued to spec. The gap can easily be seen.



***You can see the depth is very shallow.

*** The lower section has the correct groove depth as seen in this picture




*** This shows a razor can easily be incerted into the gap

*** Side view you can see the gap






*** And finally the lower section also has a small gap. Although less than the top.

Trainwreckinseattle

I just recieved these Thursday. I was trying to get caught up so I worked all this weekend and at aprox 9 PM this evening I discovered this problem. Trust me as busy as I am trying to get engines finished when I saw it my hair turned a little more grey.

I just finished sending an email. I will also call the district rep tomorrow. This will be a major pain to fix. I will have to purchase new covers from elsewhere, and somehow figure out how to deck the covers to fit these blocks.

WD_40

How do you like the lack of timing marks on the oil pump housing? My Rock oil pump looks just like yours but my timing cover looks much better than that.

I've decided to go with an Aisin pump and I'm considering reusing my OEM timing cover as well. I want to do this rebuild once and do it right; the last thing I want is to have to yank the engine out a second time because I used crappy parts the first time.

Trainwreckinseattle

I'm not sure if it's the earthquake and resulting issues in the asian area, or because of high demand for parts. But many different companies are switching around their supply side. They just toss whatever they can get their hands on into their box and sent it out.

I have seen three totally differnt styles of Rock oil pumps, 2 different covers, and this isn't just happening with rock products. It's going on with even premium brands. I have started buying many of my parts from ITM. Their older oil pump boxes say made in Taiwan, now it says made in China yet it looks identical.