Possible spun bearing?

[Mike98GS-T]

Well, as the title states... guess the motor was only good for a year. I drove it home from Gamestop (My little brother wanted to trade in some games so he can save for an Xbox) But we had to go back because they forgot to give us credit for one of the games we had traded in. As I was leaving my subdivision, I was hearing some real strange sound, like clicking. It didn't happen at lower RPM's and it was only at or around 3000-3500 RPM's. Anything higher and the check engine light would come on and I would back off of it. I don't think it's the clutch, when we installed the new motor the clutch we used had about 400 miles on it. To be honest, I think I spun a rod bearing somehow. What do you guys think?

I really do not have the money to fix this. Also, this is the worst possible time for this to happen as well, as I am getting ready to move from South Carolina back up to Michigan. Plus, I have already put my two weeks notice in for work. I don't know what to do.



UPDATE:

The car was real low on oil. Almost barely showing on the dipstick. I drained all the oil and I didn't find any metal particles in the oil. At first when we put the new oil into it it stopped making that like... clacking sound, and it seemed ok. Then when we took it for a drive (Not pushing it) the sound came back. I'm more then willing to bet that I spun a rod bearing. My oil pump has been leaking a real small bit of oil after I drive the car, so my dad thinks that now the oil pump has completely failed and is not providing the oil to lubricate the engine.



Any and all help will be greatly appreciated. I really hope I do not have a spun rod bearing.

 

[RoninEclipse2G]

It could be a bad lifter, do you have any way to check oil pressure other than the dummy light?

 

[Mike98GS-T]

It could be a bad lifter, do you have any way to check oil pressure other than the dummy light?

No, I just have the stock oil pressure gauge. It reads fairly accurately, when this is happening, the oil pressure stays in the middle if not a tad above middle. I have the balance shafts removed from my car. I don't think it's a lifter... It's a pretty loud "clacking" kind of sound. The first thing my mind went to was a spun rod bearing but when I drained my oil, I did not find and metal shavings or particles.

 

[8urwrx]

Cut open the oil filter and look for material in there.

 

[RoninEclipse2G]

Cut open the oil filter and look for material in there.

Agreed. I've seen a few times when there wasn't any metal flakes in the oil but you'd swear that a brass mine had just been discovered in the oil filter.

 

[Mike98GS-T]

Ok. I just cut open the oil filter. I did find metal shavings inside of the filter. I don't know if it was because I used a saw to hack the filter ope n or what. But I did find bronze/gold specks of metal in the filter. How do I tell 100% that I have spun bearings? And how do I replace them? Do I have to pull out the motor again?

 

[Mike98GS-T]

I was told that I can replace Rod bearings with the engine still inside the car, is this true? What is the procedure? And how long would it take me to do it?

 

[Mike98GS-T]

I had a friend come here today and he said that he thought the bearing hasn't spun all the way yet. The engine does not knock when it's cold. Once the engine was warmed up and he was rev'ing it he could hear it knock. He said that I might not have done any damage to the crank and that I may have gotten lucky and I can just replace my rod bearings. I really hope that's all I'll have to do. I have not been driving the car like this, it just happened and started today, I drove it maybe 3 miles total with it knocking.


As for progress, the oil pan is off. I couldn't go any farther because the bolts that are on the connecting rods are 11mm 12-point socket, which I do not have one. I didn't see any damage though, it all looked brand new inside the engine. Guess I'll find the damage when I get the rod caps off.

 

[Mike98GS-T]

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These are the two bearings from #3 cylinder. How do I tell if a bearing is bad? These seem fine to me. When you run your thumb pad over the surfaces they feel smooth. When you run a finger nail across the surfaces you can feel very small "scratches" for lack of a better term.

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Cylinder #2 bearing. The top bearing is still in the rod.

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Crank appears to have not been harmed at least on #2 and #3 journals.



What to do next? Put them back together and check #1 and #4?

 

[donniekak]

While you are in there see if the crank wiggles back and forth. #3 is definetly worn. I would plastigauge all of the rod bearings and see if they are out of spec enough to knock. More importantly feel the crank journals with your finger nail for any scratches. I have only seen a handfull of cases where changing the bearing fixed the problem. Usually the knock will come back quickly because of rod, or journal damage. But bearings are cheap and it's probably worth a try in your case.

 

[Mike98GS-T]

While you are in there see if the crank wiggles back and forth. #3 is definetly worn. I would plastigauge all of the rod bearings and see if they are out of spec enough to knock. More importantly feel the crank journals with your finger nail for any scratches. I have only seen a handfull of cases where changing the bearing fixed the problem. Usually the knock will come back quickly because of rod, or journal damage. But bearings are cheap and it's probably worth a try in your case.

There is no damage on the journals on the crank where we took the two rod caps off. They are in pristine condition. The crank does not move when we try to push it side to side.

We don't want to take all 4 of the cod caps off at the same time, do we?

 

[Mike98GS-T]

I plan on replacing all the bearings, with #3 bearings looking like that... will that alone be enough to cause the engine to knock when it does?

 

[donniekak]

There is no damage on the journals on the crank where we took the two rod caps off. They are in pristine condition. The crank does not move when we try to push it side to side.

We don't want to take all 4 of the cod caps off at the same time, do we?

It doesn't matter if you take them all off at once. Just don't mix them up or put them on backwards. Mark the number and orientation on the caps to avoid mixing them up. If you are not sure what direction they go, look at the number 1, and 4 rods to see if the caps are marked and which way the casting mark is facing, (front, or back of car).

 

[Mike98GS-T]

It doesn't matter if you take them all off at once. Just don't mix them up or put them on backwards. Mark the number and orientation on the caps to avoid mixing them up. If you are not sure what direction they go, look at the number 1, and 4 rods to see if the caps are marked and which way the casting mark is facing, (front, or back of car).

If I take them all out, I will have to reset the mechanical timing after I get everything back together, right?

The other night I had a friend come over who checked it out for us. He used a stethoscope and said that the knock was coming from cylinder #2 or #3, he wasn't positive. He said that if we got in there and took it apart that we'd might get lucky and not have damage to the crank. When we run our finger nails across the crank journal it's a smooth as butter. To me, it looks like we got the bearing before it was actually going to "spin". #2 cylinder bearings came out pretty clean, though it does not matter... when I order my new bearing set tomorrow I will replace all the bearings just to have a whole new set it.

Maybe I just got lucky. Again, this happened because I was driving the car with almost 2 quarts of oil low.

 

[donniekak]

As long as you don't remove the timing belt you don't have to reset the timing.

 

[RoninEclipse2G]

Maybe I just got lucky. Again, this happened because I was driving the car with almost 2 quarts of oil low.

that'll do it.

like donniekak said, make sure to plastigage the journals to make sure you're getting the right size bearings. it doesn't look like there's any unusual wear on the crank, but looks don't mean anything. Also make sure to measure the shit out of the journals to check that they are still perfectly round. I tried to do a "cali rebuild" by just replacing the bearings and rings once and I mis-measured one of the journals that had ovaled itself. even though it looked fine, it started knocking like a mother after only 50 miles.