Ok, so I got the bearings off and this is how they look...

[khartley]

I got my oil pan out and found silver and a few small copper shavings. Also found a small drill bit in the oil pan(wtf???). The silver is obviously from the one bearing, but the copper shavings? Where did they come from? The crank seems okay. But since my engine was only rebuilt a couple hundred miles ago, does that mean that some of the shavings could be the engine 'breaking in'?

Let me know your opinion on the shavings, the f-ed up bearing, and what you think I should do.

 

[psychlow]

Just wondering, did you get the bearings out yourself, Kerri?

If so, good for you! Rare to see chicks working on their own cars. There's like two here that I know of.

Anyway, did the previous owner have any receipts of the Buschur rebuild? That sounds and looks kind of fishy to me. It sounds to me like they just slapped in another bearing and sold the car - it seems odd that they'd pay to have Bushur rebuild the engine, and then sell the car for $500.00. Further proof comes from the fact that the engine was so dirty when you bought the car.

We know the engine spun a bearing before with the previous owner. Unless the crank was resurfaced (and preferably renitrited) and new matching bearings were installed correctly, it'll spin the bearing again - especially if a clogged oil passage (or low oil pressure) was to blame in the first place, and it wasn't fixed.

 

[khartley]

As a matter of fact, I did do most of it myself....I say most because I had to have a little help getting the spun bearing off....it just wanted to stay where it was I think.

Anyways, there were several reciepts in the car, most were the stubs from Postal money orders. Also there were business cards with Ohio phone numbers on them. I'm going to call Buschur tomorrow and ask if they did it. It does seem funny that they wouldn't have cleaned anything. Also the engine they put in looks like it was in a fire, maybe? The O2 sensor plug is slightly melted, as are a few other plugs. I know the crank was resurfaced, not sure about renitrited. I believe that a couple of those bearings were over-torqued.

Here is the full story about the car, as told by the previous owner.

He is the second owner, bought it from a guy in CO. He bought it for the sole purpose to beat his buddy's raced out Honda in autocrossing. This guy had a lot of money to spend, but no mechanic skills. So he paid Buschur to rebuild the engine (that isn't the engine that originally came in the car, by the way) and paid his other mechanic to do the rest of the stuff. Well, during the break in period of the engine, he got on it and had it wrapped out at about 9000 RPM's when it started to knock. He figured it was a spun bearing, so he drove it home and hasn't touched it since. He said that he didn't want to mess with it anymore. He had a lot of people interested in the car, but none were local except me. He wanted a local person to get it so he could see how it progressed. So even though I could give him the least amount of money, he let me have it just so it would stay in town. So I towed it off, and I finally got it taken apart today, and the above picture is what I found.

The End

 

[khartley]

Oh yeah, and I bought it for $2,500, not $500 (I wish!!!)

 

[diviniti]

FYI: Rebuilt motors do have metal shavings and all kinds of nasty lubricants floating around inside them. Usually if the motor is built correctly, you have very little shavings/metal particles floating around. For the reason of the life of the motor and to get good clean oil running through it... The motor oil should be changed as follows: After 1 hour of the motor running, after 150 miles, and then again at 500 miles. It is upto the engine owner if he or she wants to change it every 500 miles untill it equals to the 3,000 mile mark. The first 2 oil changes you can use whatever oil you want, EXCEPT Synthetic.
After the first 2-3 you can start using anything you wish.

 

[awd4g63]

How does everything else look? Is it just the bearings, or do you have to get another rod(s)? Hopefully, the metal shavings didn't hurt anything too much. A friend of mine had me repair his motor after he spun a bearing in his. A set of bearings and one rod later, he was up and running again. He's put about 20,000 miles on it with no signs of trouble (this was on an SR20DET, by the way).

 

[khartley]

Yeah, nothing is wrong with the rods, so I think with a new set of bearings it should be okay.

 

[awd4g63]

That's always good to hear.

Grab some Plastigage from your local auto-parts store if you haven't already got some; this stuff works wonders

 

[psychlow]

Okay, I was thinking the spun bearing was before the rebuild. So, perhaps it was rebuilt.

Regardless, the only thing I'd be worried about with a bearing that looks that bad is out-of-roundness and lack of material on the crankshaft. Before you put a new bearing on there, use a caliper to measure points around the crank and make sure it's round and within spec. As someone advised, use plastigauge to make sure the new bearing is within spec as well. As long as the crank isn't scored up and is round, you'll probably get away with just putting in a new bearing.

And yeah, the shavings are normal. As a new engine starts to wear some of the cylinder crosshatching while the rings seat, that'll cause some shavings. No big deal, as long as it's not excessive. If there's too much, it can contaminate and do nasty things to bearings, cams and cam journals.

 

[NOSLO2PT0]

I got my oil pan out and found silver and a few small copper shavings.

Copper color are the inner portion of your bearings. That's telltale sign of spun bearing, copper color in oil.

 

[khartley]

As long as the crank isn't scored up and is round, you'll probably get away with just putting in a new bearing.

That's what I wanted to hear!!!!! Yay!!!! I think it should be ok too.

Thank you so much guys!

Psychlow, your awesome.