I got one of these bore scopes from amazon and it turned out to work pretty well. You do need an android phone to use it. Pretty sweet for ~$20. I could see up into the timing cover and everything looked good. I could look down inside the cylinders from the spark plug holes...all good. I could see most of the camshaft and it was fine too. So, I pulled the rocker covers and everything looked fine there.

I pulled the timing cover off, and found that my oil pump gears were destroyed.
There are some small gouges where the pump gears sit. Do I need a whole new timing cover? Or just new oil pump parts? I don't think there was any other damage to the engine, but does anybody have ideas where I should look for sure? I can turn the crank just fine now and from underneath, the cylinders look good. If i'd had a failure because of no oil pressure, there should be some evidence, right?

 

I would get a new front cover due to the gouges. If i remember correctly another member had gouges on his front cover and it caused the oil light to intermittently go off and on.

 

Gouges definitely means new cover, and there also appears t be a crack at the bottom of your picture. That would also decrease pressure and lead to oil pump wear.

 

Mine was scored as well, though my gears were not broken, and it was giving me low pressure. Yours looks worse. You definitely need a new front cover. That one will just scratch up any oil pump you put into it.



Unfortunately, new front covers are ridiculously expensive.

 

Wow....Did you ever have a low oil pressure light on the dash come on intermittently? Glad you found the problem.

 

My oil light came in a few times at idle. I masked it with a larger filter but the new cover with a new oil pump is going on this coming weekend. I didn't include a picture of my pump but it was deeply scratched as well.

I should add that I'm pretty sure that scoring came when my engine seized and blew up a piston (stuck fuel injector bent the rod, destroyed piston). So much for the screen stopping metal bits from reaching the pump.

The fact that my little scoring caused low pressure is what caused me to be so shocked at the OP's picture. I mean, wow!

 

I saw a front cover on eBay a couple of days ago for 87 bucks. Most of them are 200 (used) to 500 (new). I messaged all of the people selling used ones and not a single one responded to my question about the oil pump housing being smooth. After the trouble of removing the crank pulley you'd think they could zip off a few screws and a bolt. A crap shoot.

If you go new on everything on a front cover (cover, water pump, oil pump, gaskets, bolts, cam sensor, etc.) it is close to a thousand dollars. You can find Discos with blown head gaskets that are drive able for that. Just ridiculous.

I was lucky to find a spare in good shape in my garage.

 

I would think "before" your oil pump grenades, you'd get some low oil pressure dash lights? who knows....maybe not.

 

I picked up a new front cover from British Parts of Utah. He's local, and had a pretty good deal for a new one.
And, it turns out I have some missing lights on my instrument panel. But the oil light works. So, yeah, it's really weird that I didn't get a least a flicker beforehand.

Thanks for all your input everybody!!

 

That's crazy how identical they are. Did you just put on a new front cover, and that fixed your problems?