How to replace Rod bearings? copper pieces in my oil pan *PICS*

[CorrupTTalon]

i have play in my bottom end at the rod, here:

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My forth cylinder is worse than the rest, meaning it has more play.. like 1/8th of and inch play where the others only have a 16th.. thats not accurate just to give you an idea, could this be causing the knock i get at 2k+ RPM? and loss of power of course.. my timing is correct, i dont think its my valves hitting my pistons... eek. and it idles and starts beautiful.. and when i was getting it home after this happend i was babying the crap out of it and it drove fine under 2k RPM. i never went over 1.5kRPM..


here is what i found in my oil pan:

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they are copper which lead me to believe they were turbo bearings. but im not blowing smoke constantly. what other bearings in my engine would be copper like that? or could my turbo be causing this internal knock? and loss of power when not producing enough boost?

im lost!

some facts about the car:

BS removed
new timing belt, crank and cams lined up anyways
new T25 less than 400 miles on it
new oil pump
new water pump
oil pressure was normal

EDIT:

how do i replace these bearings? do i have to remove the head? or can i pull it all out from the bottom end?

 

[Quasimondo]

if i decide to pull the crank can i replace the rings with stock new ones can i do it without honing or doing any machine work to the block?

No. At the very least the cylinder walls will need to be rehoned, otherwise the new rings will never seal up properly and you'll have poor compression and possibly burn oil.

It's better safe than sorry. Take your block to the machine shop, have it hot tanked, and all the tolerances and clearances checked, such as a flat deck (top of the engine block) and cylinder walls checked for taper and roundness.

 

[nuggets]

this SAME thing just happened to my car. cylinder #4.. car was driven hard the night it happened and oil pressure has been getting lower for the past month. it started dropping below 15 psi on my mech. gauge.


pulled the oil pan, found the same thing, #4 rod bearing destroyed. I have been trying to do the cheap fix for the past 2 weeks. micropolishing the crank with 2000 grit wetsandpaper and bought a new set of clevite bearings. it's all in, just havn't primed the oil pump to start it yet.


After reading this thread I'm having second thoughts about wasting a good set of bearings for only a month but rebuilding AGAIN would be such a money loss. This sucks terribly because at the moment im without a car and Id do anything to get this thing running reliably again b4 all this CRAP happened.


BTW: I wasn't driving the car the night it started knocking. A friend who helped me build it and has taught me everything about engines/cars/mechanics was the culprit. Should he be responsible or was this a cause of something else? I dunno what im saying anymore.. im just so STRESSED OVER THIS THING!!!!

 

[Syndicate13]

DSM cranks are <a href="http://www.key-to-steel.com/Articles/Art117.htm" target="new">nitrided</a>. Its a hardening process. If you grind aka turn it, you will remove the hard outer coating of the metal that has the added strenght. Then it will really be unreliable and increased chances for failure are there.

6 bolt cranks are nitrided. 7 bolt cranks are not. I hate bringing up this information all the time but I believe it is something that should be read at least once. This was posted by a local DSM guru and I have seen this in person at his house, the file test really amazed me.

I am 100% sure I have discovered why 7 bolts are more likely to crank walk than a 6 bolt. The 7 bolt cranks are soft. They were not nitrided from the factory like 6 bolts. First I observed cranks left outside . 7 bolts rusted overnite. 6 bolts take months to rust. Then i discovered the file test. Take a small round file and try to cut in the journals. The file pretty much bounces off the 6 bolts. The 7 cuts like butter.

7 bolt blocks do not tolerate any kind of detonation or low oil pressure because of this. So that is why everyone is ditching them for the more durable 6 bolts. But is this a good idea?

The 7 bolt is superior design in many ways.
The block girdle is far superior design, adds tremendous stiffness to the main caps. The crank is 5 lbs lighter and more oil dynamic. It slices throughthe oil better. The block also comes with a splash pan so the crank doesn't have to slice through so much oil. The journlas are ten percent smaller for slightly less friction. The block IS designed to make more HP.

So where is the future? 7 bolts. All you have to do is nitride the cranks during a build up and you will have a superior block with the same durabilty.

Doing 6 bolt swaps is a pain in the arse. And there are problems. Mitsu no longer sells the 93-94 CAS. The cars will run on the earlier 1G sensors but it triggers a misfire code and is a royal pain in the arse resetting the ecu all the time. They also dont sell the 6 bolt oil bracket any longer. In short its getting difficult to find the 6 bolt parts needed to do swaps.

Unfornately nitriding is not as cheap as I hoped. It cost arond 275 after shipped two ways. Still seems like the way to go if you ask me.

 

[nuggets]

Syndicate. I'm amazed to only have read this type of information for the first time. I believe someone should re-create these tests and post them online to get this information out there if it is correct of course, but i dont understand why someone would lie about such a thing.



Where did you get your 7-bolt crank nitrided? I'm interested. And is it possible for me to simply regrind my crank, get it nitrided, put it back in with new bearings and problem solved? Let me know..

 

[Syndicate13]

Syndicate. I'm amazed to only have read this type of information for the first time. I believe someone should re-create these tests and post them online to get this information out there if it is correct of course, but i dont understand why someone would lie about such a thing.



Where did you get your 7-bolt crank nitrided? I'm interested. And is it possible for me to simply regrind my crank, get it nitrided, put it back in with new bearings and problem solved? Let me know..

Like I said I didn't write this, a friend of mine did. He is the local DSM guru, he makes his living building transmissions and engines if that tells you anything. I was going to go with a built 7 bolt with a nitrided crank but time and money constraints forced me to go 6 bolt. I am happy with my choice but I would have been just as happy the other way as well.

 

[TheBoz]

I am running a 6bolt cut crank. I had to go 10 over on it. Because of the amount of wear that was on the crank. Currently I am running 22psi on an EVO 3 16G. I have not had any problems yet. I am about 4000 Miles into the motor. Everything seems to be running very well. Believe me, I drive the shit out of my car, and the motor is running very strong. So I would say if you cannot find a good crank, just grind it but dont expect it to last forever .

While you are working on your motor you may as well put good bearings, and studs in it.

 

[Skunked tsi]

I have a good crank I would be willing to sell with good rods as well assuming you had rod damage on #4. I also have some brand new never used Clevites.
Pm if you need it or are interested.
Tyler

 

[Turbo Talon DL]

You would be so much better and so much more @ piece-of-mind if you just either had a rebuild, or bought a rebuilt bottom end. The cost is a little much, sometimes ridiculous, but just remember, you get what you pay for. I paid $6-700 for my last bottom end to be machined/rebuilt, but they didn't do anything but half-ass it for me That motor lasted about 300 miles before I got tired of having anxiety issues with it every time i needed to drive it. To make a long story short, it had issues that we wont discuss. There are rebuilt 6 and 7 bolt blocks going for less than $1500, for a new motor Cant beat that. When you JUST replace some parts, everything needs to be machined to match. Just replacing one thing within spec inside something NOT in spec is never good, you'd create new problems rather than fix what you're originally after from the start. Just get a rebuild before you WISH you'd listened to everybody here on DSMTuners, we're not all so bad.... Oh, and to add to the 'not running turned-down crank' band-wagen, i believe the nitrided layer is .015 thick? I could be wrong, but im sure I read that somewhere. So, in theory most people only turn their cranks down -.010, which means its still safe, right? Like I said, I could EASILY be wrong.

 

[gurrmanator]

You would be so much better and so much more @ piece-of-mind if you just either had a rebuild, or bought a rebuilt bottom end. The cost is a little much, sometimes ridiculous, but just remember, you get what you pay for. I paid $6-700 for my last bottom end to be machined/rebuilt, but they didn't do anything but half-ass it for me That motor lasted about 300 miles before I got tired of having anxiety issues with it every time i needed to drive it. To make a long story short, it had issues that we wont discuss. There are rebuilt 6 and 7 bolt blocks going for less than $1500, for a new motor Cant beat that. When you JUST replace some parts, everything needs to be machined to match. Just replacing one thing within spec inside something NOT in spec is never good, you'd create new problems rather than fix what you're originally after from the start. Just get a rebuild before you WISH you'd listened to everybody here on DSMTuners, we're not all so bad.... Oh, and to add to the 'not running turned-down crank' band-wagen, i believe the nitrided layer is .015 thick? I could be wrong, but im sure I read that somewhere. So, in theory most people only turn their cranks down -.010, which means its still safe, right? Like I said, I could EASILY be wrong.

you are correct... nitrate process goes .020 into the crank...010 grind is safe.

 

[gsxtacy]

.020 on 6 bolt cranks.............even less than that on 7 bolts, so DO NOT TURN a 7 bolt crank, it will be garbage.

gsxtacy