Galley Plugs, Which ones? Options

[Chad911sc]

While I have my engine out to fix my crank, wanted to do all the things I didn’t do the first time. I want to make sure I do all the galley plugs that are necessary to prevent one popping out and losing my oil pressure. Several posts on this forum say just to do the five, and some other forums say, to do many more. I got the main five out, and they were really in there! It took many pulls on the slide hammer to remove them. Surprisingly enough, my galley’s were spotless! In the bottom 2 pictures, my question is, do I need to remove these smaller ones up by the oil cooler? And also, what about this big one to the bottom right of the oil pump housing? Do these need to be removed and tapped as well?

[Superhawk996]

While I have my engine out to fix my crank, wanted to do all the things I didn’t do the first time. I want to make sure I do all the galley plugs that are necessary to prevent one popping out and losing my oil pressure.

Ah yes the old mythology of oil pressure blowing out galley plugs.

Unless you are running crazy oil pressures it just isn’t going to happen. Suspect now that you’ve seen how much effort it takes to remove a plug you see why this is the case.

Personally, I agree with pulling them to clean oil galleys. Somehow you’ve gotten lucky and don’t seem to have gunk in yours. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cheer.gif) You alone need to assess how much risk you’re willing to take in opening up (or not) the other galleys. I make that decision based on the engine and/or what I know about the engine history.

Well now that you’ve got them pulled you’re opening up a whole other debate of what to replace them with. Steel, brass, or aluminum.

I don’t think I have the willpower to rehash that debate. I personally use aluminum for the same reason the OEM did. Same exact thermal expansion characteristics that prevent leaks.

If you pull all the plugs be prepared for some weird setups on a drill press or mill to get all of the galleys drilled and tapped properly. The more that are drilled and tapped hy hand, the more you risk leaks.

[914sgofast2]

Jake Raby did a video about this some time ago. Unfortunately
I don’t have a link. Remember him saying only thec 5 larger ones need to be replaced. Never the small ones near the oil cooler/ oil filer areas.

[MartyYeoman]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/bye1.gif)

[Chad911sc]

10-4.
It was so hard to get the 5 out that I did pull, I’m definitely not worried about the other ones coming out. I am going to do a true full flow on the engine this time, instead of using that adapter plate off of the factory oil cooler spot, as I did the last time. So I will only be putting 4 plugs back in. It was the original engine for the car with 100,000 miles on it, and it ran decent when I bought it. It just had oil puking from every nook and cranny, so I pulled it apart. And of course while I had it apart I changed everything.

[930cabman]

10-4.
It was so hard to get the 5 out that I did pull, I’m definitely not worried about the other ones coming out. I am going to do a true full flow on the engine this time, instead of using that adapter plate off of the factory oil cooler spot, as I did the last time. So I will only be putting 4 plugs back in. It was the original engine for the car with 100,000 miles on it, and it ran decent when I bought it. It just had oil puking from every nook and cranny, so I pulled it apart. And of course while I had it apart I changed everything.

It was running with the bent crank?

[Chad911sc]

Yes it ran with the .008 out crank. This is why I lost my oil pressure, it wiped the middle main bearing. It only ran for about 3 hours total and most of it was on jack stands trying to tune the carbs. But when I took it for a drive, once the carbs were tuned good enough to really put the gas down to seat the rings, it dropped the pressure to only about 4 lbs at idle. It had never gotten over 190 degrees in the driveway and would hold 8-10lbs. Once it got to 220 it lost the pressure, so I pulled it back apart. Everything inside still looks great and the case bores are perfect. I used a bore gauge to re check them and they are in middle of the spec on thrust sides.

[Chad911sc]

Sorry Cabman,
If you meant when I bought the car it was running…yes. I’m not sure if the crank was bent then though, because it had 10lbs at idle. But truthfully I never drove it more than 3 miles before I tore it all apart. I drove it from where the shipper dropped it off, to where I live. There is no way it was even close to hot temps by then. Hard to know. It might have gotten bent from it being dropped or mishandled at the machine shop when I took it to get checked. All I know is I’m on the right path now to put it back together for hopefully the last time.

[930cabman]

Sorry Cabman,
If you meant when I bought the car it was running…yes. I’m not sure if the crank was bent then though, because it had 10lbs at idle. But truthfully I never drove it more than 3 miles before I tore it all apart. I drove it from where the shipper dropped it off, to where I live. There is no way it was even close to hot temps by then. Hard to know. It might have gotten bent from it being dropped or mishandled at the machine shop when I took it to get checked. All I know is I’m on the right path now to put it back together for hopefully the last time.

Great, you took the crank (and maybe other precision parts) to the trusted machine shop and they returned a bent crank. How is this possible, these cranks are stout forgings (I'm quite sure) and they don't bend easily. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/screwy.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/screwy.gif)

[Chad911sc]

Since this has happened to me, I’ve called all of my buddies that I’ve made over the past 30 years, and it’s been happening to them as well here in central Florida. I just talked to one of my old friends Bob, who races big block fords and has several cars that he builds the engines for every other year or so. He said he wouldn’t recommend anyone to me because a lot of his work has been suspect lately. He said the last time he had his rods sized, they screwed them up so bad that they were now unusable! I guess it’s just a crap shoot from now on. I am now looking for someone within a couple hours driving distance to balance my rotating assembly. Hopefully I can find someone. I didn’t do it the first time I built it, so I want to do it this time.

[Dave_Darling]

Ah yes the old mythology of oil pressure blowing out galley plugs.

If that's a myth, then why did a plug pop out on my old 1.8 on cold start-up one fine (and panic-inducing) morning?

--DD

[Superhawk996]

Ah yes the old mythology of oil pressure blowing out galley plugs.

If that's a myth, then why did a plug pop out on my old 1.8 on cold start-up one fine (and panic-inducing) morning?

--DD

Not enough info… (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

Oil galley plugs are common to all OEM engines in one way or another. There is nothing unique or lacking in quality how T4 galley plugs are installed say vs any other production engine.

Like all things automotive - the exceptions don’t make the rule.

Could have been a defective plug that was undersized.
Could have been that Hans was having a bad Monday and didn’t install fully?
Could someone have been in there previously at a rebuild and didn’t install properly?
Could the oil pressure relief have been stuck and didn’t bypass?
Running a 30mm oil pump with 20W-50 oil on a -10F morning?

I don’t mean to imply that oddities never happen. Rather that it isn’t necessary to pull all plugs and replace with tapped plugs just because it happened to someone once.

Here’s a question back - how do you explain blowing out a galley plug and not blowing out the rubber oil cooler seals 1st?

And I’ll agree I was being a little hyperbolic implying that blown galley plugs are “mythology”. I usually try to use the (IMG:style_emoticons/default/stirthepot.gif) emoji when I do something like this. Galley plug blowout clearly do happen on a very infrequent basis across all sorts of cars but it’s certainly not normal. Shame on me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spank.gif)

[Dave_Darling]

Stock 1.8 motor, very well-loved. Most likely not a bad install, as it had run for many tens of thousands of miles before that.

Best guess my mechanic had was that age and expansion and contraction eventually made the interference fit "tired", so one fine morning it popped out and the oil light came on.

Standard advice in the late 80s or thereabouts used to be to put epoxy over the plugs when you had the engine out, just in case. Might have also been a way to get people to actually clean the area where the plugs lived and inspect them...

--DD

[Ninja]

In my experience I've seen MORE problems with replaced galley plugs than stock original ones...

Sadly, you really should remove them to allow cleaning of the galleys, at least the important ones.

There are ALWAYS exceptions!

Italian engines have the worst fitting plugs of any manufacture.

I've never torn down an Alfa that didn't have MISSING plugs on the crankshaft itself!!!

You get to change them ALL and then have the crank rebalanced, total BS. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif)

I'm with the Hawk again here. Having the galleys tapped on a mill is the way to go.

I've done many by hand and haven't had any come out, but if the option is available, I'd pay to have them properly done.

Aluminum on aluminum or steel on steel in the only way in my book as well.

Only problem here is the modern aluminum plug is often hypereutectic and has an expansion rate that is far closer to steel than aluminum...

Damned if you do, damned if you don't!