Crankwalk.

And that was the first thing that came to my head when it happened.
The guy was asking a lot and had a lot of money in it but that was my fear to pay a lot and have to rebuild

Check end play on the crank prior to purchasing it to make sure...

He either knows about it and is trying to sell it while it's still running or has no idea, you'll quickly find out if it's the later if you ask to check end play on the crank before you buy it and he gets defensive.

I feel like he has some suspicions of crank walk. Who builds a monster engine and o my drives it for a little while and then doesn't drive it for 4 months. It's one of those things were maybe it's a vacuum line that is loose or something minor or it could be a major problem like crank walk. I'm kinda glad he didn't except my low offer. Might have been a lot of trouble.

And how would you check end play?

grab the crank pulley and try to pull it back and forth

loosen the clutch slave cylinder to release the pressure from the pressure plate first.

If you're truly interested in the car (it's clean, well built, well maintained) then I wouldn't write it off as CRANKWALK! and move onto the next DSM that may come around. Clean, well maintained, tastefully built DSM's are few and far between.

There are lots of reasons why the engine RPM might drop/stall when the clutch is depressed that are simple fixes and don't require a new bottom end.

See what I'm getting at here? Crankwalk isn't the only thing that can stall the motor when you press in the clutch. If it were your car or you're really interested in buying it (not low balling the shit out of the owner for it because you're assuming the motor walked) I'd suggest looking into the other 49 things that can cause the same symptom first instead of jumping to worst case scenario...


You check end play with a dial gauge and magnetic base (Google search the how-to), spec for end play on a 4g63 is 0.002" - 0.007" (0.05mm - 0.18mm). If it's really bad end play is usually just a visual check, you can ask someone to depress the clutch pedal with the car off and see if the crank pulley moves side to side.

gofer said:

If you're truly interested in the car (it's clean, well built, well maintained) then I wouldn't write it off as CRANKWALK! and move onto the next DSM that may come around. Clean, well maintained, tastefully built DSM's are few and far between.

There are lots of reasons why the engine RPM might drop/stall when the clutch is depressed that are simple fixes and don't require a new bottom end.

- Could be the tune (more than likely the case if it's heavily modified and not properly been tuned).
- Could be a bad throw out bearing (TOB) not letting the clutch completely disengage when the pedal's depressed and the car's in gear.
- Could have low/no hydraulic fluid in the the clutch line to properly operate the clutch slave cylinder. Different reason but would cause the same issue, not enough movement on the slave cylinder rod doesn't move the clutch fork enough to disengage the clutch completely when it's in gear/idling with the clutch pedal pressed.
- Could be that the clutch pedal assy. (clutch master cylinder rod) isn't properly adjusted up under the dash. Again, not fully disengaging the clutch when the pedal's depressed.
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See what I'm getting at here? Crankwalk isn't the only thing that can stall the motor when you press in the clutch. If it were your car or you're really interested in buying it (not low balling the sh** out of the owner for it because you're assuming the motor walked) I'd suggest looking into the other 49 things that can cause the same symptom first instead of jumping to worst case scenario...


You check end play with a dial gauge and magnetic base (Google search the how-to), spec for end play on a 4g63 is 0.002" - 0.007" (0.05mm - 0.18mm). If it's really bad end play is usually just a visual check, you can ask someone to depress the clutch pedal with the car off and see if the crank pulley moves side to side.

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It wasn't just that. It had a oil leak close to the crank pulley and two different oil gauges he had were not working. Once again maybe just something minor. He was asking $8k for it which is a lot esp when he didn't have any receipts for the parts or labor. Which once again isn't a reason not to buy it. I offered him $6k which I did feel bad about offering but I honestly felt like it was a decent offer. He didn't even come back with a counter. If he would have said $7k I probably would have taken it. I just felt $8k was a lot to spend on a car that could potentially have major problems. I felt like $6k was worth the risk. That's just my opinion. But your 100% right by saying it very well might be something simple. But for me to go,thru all those check until I find out was too much for me.

I even explained my offer to the seller apologizing for the low offer.

Reminds me of some years ago when I went to look at a GSX that had been sitting a few months. I had owned a 97 RS, 99 GS and 98 Esi, but never a 4g63. I got there and immediately noticed that it looked really good cosmetically. Everything looked good.. paint, newer tires, brakes, no rips in the seats, etc.. and owner even had receipts for a recent head rebuild. I started it up and it sounded beautiful, then let it idle for like 15-20 minutes while we talked about cars and other random stuff. I then sat in the driver seat and pressed the clutch and shifted through the gears and it shifted nice and smooth. Gas tank was on E so i offered to drive to the nearby gas station that i had passed on my way over. He said ok so we rolled. first stop we were coming to, I pressed the clutch in to slowly coast to the stop and the RPMS dropped and the car stalled. My first thought was, we were out of gas but i pressed the clutch in, restarted it, and it fired right up. so he immediately explained that the previous owner had vented the BOV and thats why it stalled with the clutch depressed but said he drove it that way for years and it never bothered him. I honestly had no idea what venting a BOV meant so I just rolled with it haha. he explained that if i waited til RPMS were near 1200 or so, before pressing in the clutch when stopping, then it wouldn't stall. So anyway, as we kept going, i noticed the clutch pedal weirdly re-adjusted itself.. it went from being quite soft, like almost non existent, replace as soon as possible kind of soft, to being stiff, i mean like stage 3 stiff. I asked him about it and he said its been acting that way lately. He said he took it to a mechanic who told him his master cylinder was going out soon. i didnt stress about it though because i figured if i bought it, i was immediately gonna do oil and all necessary fluid changes, possibly brakes and rotors, hoses, new clutch, cylinders etc... basically i was gonna perform a full maintenance. Long story short i made him an offer we worked it out and i brought it home and parked it. Then a few weeks later and enough funds saved up, i started to work on it and get it up to speed. Then drove it a few weeks and noticed the pedal thing was just getting worse. At that point i parked the car and went from lurking to actually opening up an account on here and doing some overdue research. I then found out the clutch thing was related to crankwalk and also found out how to check to make sure. I took the car to my uncles shop, put it on the lift and checked it and it was unbelievable how much end play it had. My uncle especially, couldn't believe because in all his 40+ years of mechanic work, he had never once worked on 4g63 motor before and said he had never seen that kind of play. He advised me not to keep driving it because he didn't think it would be safe so i took it home and parked it. long story short, with a good amount of knowledge gained from endlessly browsing the different topics and researching, i let the car sit and gathered funds and eventually pulled that motor and did a 6bolt swap but kept my head since it was recently rebuilt and nice and clean. Anyway the point i'm trying to make is, when buying a DSM anywhere from 95 to 99, just be really careful and ask all the necessary questions and even possibly ask to check the crank end play to make sure its good before you buy.

Yeah I do plan on doing a 6 bolt swap once I get a 2g just to make me feel safer

And I do know a 7 bolt can be reliable I just would feel safer with a 6 bolt.