Bearings? balance shaft and mains craziness

[SBstar]

Wow, now I know how ya'll feel when you say you want to give up on your car. I started the procedure to eliminate the balance shafts, along the way we discovered that I also had a spun bearing. Lucky for myself the crankshaft seems to be ok. I'm going to take my camera with me today to work on it and see if I can post some pics. But I also have another problem. One of the rear balance shaft bearings decided to land in my oil pan, not a huge deal but it looks like because the rear balance shaft kept spinning it wore out the block and now a new bearing won't be large enough to fill the hole. We're going to see if we can find a way to fix it somehow but I might be in for a whole new engine. We're also going to inspect the oil pump and a few other things to make sure they're alright. Does anyone have any suggestions what I should look for, or how to fix the balance shaft bearing problem?

 

[blackGSX2g]

The rear balance shaft doesn't need a bearing in it if you put the stubby shaft from the eliminator kit (or $12 from the mitsu dealer).

If I were you, I would take the crank out and bring it to a machine shop to have it checked. It would be bad to get everything back together to find that your crank starts eating more bearings.

 

[SBstar]

The rear balance shaft doesn't need a bearing in it if you put the stubby shaft from the eliminator kit (or $12 from the mitsu dealer).

If I were you, I would take the crank out and bring it to a machine shop to have it checked. It would be bad to get everything back together to find that your crank starts eating more bearings.

Hey Lafond, can you believe I'm just finally beginning this. Yeah we figured out that we didn't need the rear bearing, the guy helping me is professional at this kind of stuff and he figures it should be alright. He's amazed that the crank isn't scored. When he saw the first bearing he said I'd have to rebuild the whole engine or get a new one. Then when we checked further we found out that the crank seems to be fine. we'll keep ya updated.

 

[blackGSX2g]

Sounds good.

At least your not in a hurry, thats when things start going wrong and details are overlooked. I'm sure you'd rather it take longer and be done right.

Just a general rule of thumb by most mechanics...if you take the edge of a penny and scrape it from side to side on the crank and it leaves a copper mark, your crank should be polished or reground. For the cost aspect of that, I got my crank polished to a beautiful mirror shine for $28.

If your motor does need new bearings and you need to take out the crank, its really not that much more work and a new set of Clevite rod and main bearings cost only $100.

Good luck.

 

[SBstar]

Well things pretty much went from bad to worse. We decided to keep digging deeper into it just to make sure other things weren't wrong. We discovered metal shavings all around the crank so we decided to remove the the valve cover. Sure enough more shavings and a couple rockers laying in the bottom. What we got are some bent valves. So I guess I either have the decision of rebuilding the motor. (why just replace the bearings when who knows what else could be wrong) Or I can find a new motor. The people I've been working with. (one a trucker for life whose tore apart more engines then I'll ever hope to see and one a liscenced mechanic) both say it'd be better for me to find a new engine.

 

[blackGSX2g]

Wow, that really sucks. I would assume you could keep your block, have it stripped bored and hot tanked to clean out everything. You would probably want to replace the oil pump and front case ($100) and if you bore it out some new pistons possibly upgrades ($200-350) and then find someone with a good head for cheap or grab one from a local junkyard and take it to a machine shop for a valve job ($200). After all that, you'd have a fully rebuilt motor that should last you awhile.

That or you could just find a complete one for sale, but then you might run into the same problem you did with this one.

 

[SBstar]

yeah thats why I don't really want to buy a used one. But I can find heads pretty cheap. I'm not sure about the block though because we found a small crack in it. Otherwise I'd do what you said about rebuilding it. Its a bummer but at least I got the experience and I know a whole lot more about my engine now. That and I don't feel like I spent to much because I've seen people who want to sell you a shell for the amount I paid for the car and I guess thats what I ended up with.