We had our blown methanol BBC freshened up for the season by a fairly well known hot rodder/race car builder here in the UK. There was not much wrong with it from last season, basically he just replaced the bearing shells. We test ran it for the first time last week, it fired up and ran well. After draining the oil we found some small non-magnetic particles in the oil filter. Not enough to really worry about but a bit puzzling. Some of them seemed to be aluminum & some looked like phosphor-bronze. When we checked the lash before running again, it developed a tight spot that got worse the more we looked for it, until it was pretty much locked up. We took off the blower & inlet & I noticed I could move the crank about 5 degrees without moving the cam. We took off the fuel pump & front distributor drive & found that the cam dowel was missing & the bolts loose which hold the drive & cam hub to the cam. It seems the builder did not torque them up enough. He agreed on that & stated that there definitely was a dowel in the cam. We have not been able to find the dowel. it was not in the sump. A more experienced builder & racer told me they do sometimes come out & the gear drive is so hard it can actually munch them up. We tightened the bolts, replaced the rockers one at a time, turned it over by hand & it seemed ok. We didn't run it because I could not get a dowel & also we were worried about where the bits had gone. So after that long story, my question is should we have it completely stripped, inspected & cleaned or just replace the dowel?
