Finally time to fix all the major problems

[Antiqueford]

My 1992 GVR4 spun a rod bearing, so now its time to fix all the issues that its had since I bought it.

The problems I've had are shot 1st gear synchros (and probably gearsets by now), excessive crankcase pressures (remedied with a vented catch-can), and oil leaking from the downpipe flex joint (or so I thought). I was adding 1qt of oil a week.

Now that I have started tearing into it, I got the turbo off (cheap eBay 16g, whose seals I was blaming for the oil leakage) and it looks great! I thought oil was coming through the flex joint, but now I'm thinking the return tube was just leaking, since the gasket had a film of oil on it. The turbo itself, and the intake tubes are not as full of oil as they were when the 14b quit.

For now, the question is, do you think the turbo is shot? Given the fact the the return tube appears to be the culprit for the leak, and the small amount of oil in the intake can certainly be attributed to the amount of blowby possible forcing air up the return pipe, I would guess that this eBay POS ain't quite as bad as I was thinking given its reputation!

 

[91boostfedGSX]

Post up some pics

 

[Antiqueford]

Havent taken any. The turbo is already sealed up because its gonna be a while before it goes back together. The turbine is clean white colored (normal?) and no coking anywhere, and there is no oil that I can show in a picture on the inside of the charge pipes. The drop of oil inside the inlet could have been covered with a dime easily.

One other helpful tidbit, there was no oil or oil smoke from the tailpipe before the engine failure. I'm currently searching for a way to test oil seals with the turbo off the car....

 

[Antiqueford]

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There's some pics of the highest concentration of oil. This could be residue from when my catch can froze this winter. Seems like I'm learning all this turbo chit the hard way! From reading, it seems unlikely that there would be failed oil seals if there isn't even a little shaft play. I'm gonna go ahead and assume the turbos good unless a lot of you guys post up and say it ain't!

 

[Antiqueford]

Nobody cares to speculate??

I'll hopefully be getting the engine out this weekend and see what happened.

 

[Antiqueford]

Pulled the oil pan off and played a hunch that the one journal that was a different color than the rest was the problem area. Here's what I found:

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A little while ago I read that if the crank needs to be ground, it should just go in the scrap pile. Is this true?

 

[cianfar]

Depend if the crank can be save and how much material they have to machined out. Not sure what is the max you can cut a crank??? Those bearing look pretty worn man. I have the same problem except my was number one and number four both spun rod bearing. I was able to save my crank because it was still within maching tolerances. The only way to really know if you take it to a machine shop.

 

[Antiqueford]

I just got off the phone with Jackson Machine.

They said that they don't recommend cutting more than .020"/.020", but I'll be surprised if my crank needs more than .01". Also, he said the rod will likely be able to be reconditioned, which surprised me.

With my v8's, any damage done to the rods is usually caused by rod bolt stretch, which allows the crank to start "hammering" up and down on the big end of the rod, which in turn keeps stretching the big end of the rod until its an egg shape. I'd guess with all the slop I had in the big end when I took the cap off, that that would have also occurred with this engine. But there's a lot I don't know about DSM's....

Jackson's seems to have pretty reasonable prices, and I like the fact that I didn't have to specifically ask for a torque plate hone on the block, and things like hot tanking and magnaflux are included in the price of the work.

 

[cianfar]

Nice here a video of reconditioning a Rod by DSMGraveyards
Reconditioning Connecting Rods 1 of 4 - Graveyard Motorsports - YouTube

 

[Antiqueford]

Over the past few days I've been wrestling with my transmission case trying to get it apart! The bolts are heavily oxidized and I'm surprised any of them threaded out. I did manage to break two, but I am a machinist and the case will fit in the mill, so no big deal there. I think for peace of mind, I'm going to heli-coil all of the case bolts. (Yeah, they're that bad).

I did eventually get the case apart and got a chance to look at things. 1st gear is pretty worn out as its had problems since I bought it 6000 miles ago. Recently I haven't been able to use 1st at all! I'm working with Jack's Transmission to get the parts I need there. I may spring for a couple of upgrades since most of the fun in driving this car comes from the 5-speed, AWD platform.