Non VW Ford Essex V6 question (apols)

[Michael4]

Apologies for a non VW question but I suspect someone here might be able to help. 

Our son has a '70s Reliant Scimitar with a 3 litre Essex lump in it. Despite being on the edge of being a project/basket case/barn find it goes rather well with 40psi oil pressure.

Yesterday it went pop and stopped. It appears that the oil pump seized and stripped the gears on the distributor drive.

I have been messing around with old motors for over 50 years, this is the first  time I have ever experienced an oil pump seizing solid.

I wonder why? Any ideas?

[ajsimmo]

I pinged my mate who had a couple of Scimitars, and has done a few Essex engines. He said:

"Never heard of an oil pump seizing up but there is a pencil drive which goes between the drive gear of the dizzy and into the oil pump. The ends of the pencil drive used to round off so there was no drive to the oil pump. The essex engine also used to have a fibre timing gear and the teeth used to break off. If you caught it in time you could change the timing gears without taking the sump off. It is therefore possible that if teeth had come off and someone changed the gears, bits could have still been in the sump and got sucked up into the oil pump strainer and starved it of oil. Damage to the sump near the strainer could also block it."

Sent from my moto g(30) using Tapatalk

[Michael4]

Many thanks for this. He took the the pump off and found the pencil drive twisted (which ties in with the pump seizing). When the bolts holding the pump together were loosened it started to turn and opening it up showed a lot of nasty scoring both on the base and around the outer gear (or whatever it is called). Curiously there a bit  of old wire brush in there so something has been going on. He will be checking through what is left in the sump later today.

The timing gears have been replaced with metal ones by the PO (allegedly). Who knows if this was done after a failure that left debris as you suggest. It would be nice to find the culprit.

Pumps are £40 so it is a case of clean up everything, do lots of flushing and see what happens next but it is a strange one...

Thanks again