Pulled motor today, somone please tell me im wrong...

[TurkF26]

Well today we finally got my motor out. Found some interesting results.

The first thing that makes me kinda mad is that i have been having this weird rubbing noise ever since i got the car. I first swapped the tranny, flyweel and still was there and did become louder. What i didnt notice the first time was that there was 2 good sized holes drilled right into the pressure plate that ARE NOT supost to be there. I should have noticed this the first time i puleed the tranny but i always figured the pressure plate was fine. Now as Scrymerr and myself did some thinking on that, we figured that since the holes were there it through off the balance of the whole assembly...

When we pulled the pan off the car, i noticed many good sized pieces of metal everywhere. At first i had no idea what they were. These pieces of metal where everywhere in all different sizes. The conclusion is that since the clutch was not properly balanced it threw off the crank to which promoted major bearing wear. I have yet to pull the crank and such out to see but its the only logical conclusion as to why the metal was all over the inside of the motor. Anyone have any ideas or maybe know something i dont????

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[GTM]

...
The first thing that makes me kinda mad is that i have been having this weird rubbing noise ever since i got the car. I first swapped the tranny, flyweel and still was there and did become louder. What i didnt notice the first time was that there was 2 good sized holes drilled right into the pressure plate that ARE NOT supost to be there.
...
When we pulled the pan off the car, i noticed many good sized pieces of metal everywhere. At first i had no idea what they were. These pieces of metal where everywhere in all different sizes. The conclusion is that since the clutch was not properly balanced it threw off the crank to which promoted major bearing wear. I have yet to pull the crank and such out to see but its the only logical conclusion as to why the metal was all over the inside of the motor. You will see the pressure plate once i get pictures. Anyone have any ideas or maybe know something i dont????

While I agree it's never good to see some butcher has drilled holes in a clutch pressure plate they may have been done to accept locator dowel pins from another flywheel. For his application their would have been a dowel pin which would have substituted the mass removed from the hole and hopefully the assembly balanced.

As for you conclusion that this is the cause of your engine problems it is not correct.

Something tells me the engine was done the same way as the clutch with about as much common sense. The bottom line is you have a whole load of problems which will probably cost a lot to repair.

Hopefully your skills are up to the task, if not try to find a used running engine and clutch, save this for weekend projects over several months as you learn more.

Cheers,
GTM

 

[TurkF26]

well i pulled the bottom end apart and heres some of the pics of some of the rod bearings, etc... ill let the pics speak for themselves... i think this was caused by an totally unbalanced assembly from the clutch and flywheel....

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[TurkF26]

i was told that the motor was never touched on the bottom end but with this i seriously do not know. Wasnt able to get the crank out so i dont know what those bearings look like either but i probably already know the answer to that...

 

[somdturbo]

i was told that the motor was never touched on the bottom end but with this i seriously do not know. Wasnt able to get the crank out so i dont know what those bearings look like either but i probably already know the answer to that...

Agreed. If those bearings look like that then I'm sure the others are bad as well. If it were me, i'd pull that crank, check it for problems, pop in some new bearings, new clutch, flush entire engine....good to go. (makes it sound like its easy) good luck man.

 

[GTM]

i was told that the motor was never touched on the bottom end but with this i seriously do not know. Wasnt able to get the crank out so i dont know what those bearings look like either but i probably already know the answer to that...

I can't be sure but it looks like these bearings have seen a lot of metal in circulation that have damaged them. I don't see enough missing bearing material to justify it having come from this set. I can only conclude that they did not thoroughly flush the engine when these were installed and subsequent running washed it into circulation.

I don't know where you got your info about the flywheel/clutch causing this but please support your conclusion with some recognized authority. Were this true the transmission would be equal if not more trashed for the input shaft bearing would be toast and probably destroyed the countershaft along the way.

I'm not saying any of this is absolute, however, it's difficult to imagine having a clutch so far out of balance it would destroy an engine. I certainly would want you to have the crank inspected for being bent.

Cheers,
GTM

 

[TurkF26]

As it sits the rods and crank have score marks in them too. I have only drawn conclusions from this but still do not know the entire reason. I also did find out that the previous owner did fry the bearings in this motor and did replace them which would lead me to believe that it was poor\wrong installation.

 

[GTM]

As it sits the rods and crank have score marks in them too. I have only drawn conclusions from this but still do not know the entire reason. I also did find out that the previous owner did fry the bearings in this motor and did replace them which would lead me to believe that it was poor\wrong installation.

If the mains are still installed you could check the crank end play. I suspect the thrust bearing may have contributed because of the heavy clutch to all the metal floating around. All the little round dots or dots with tails are chunks of metal and yet the bearings we see have scratches from the contaminated oil but the bearing metal is not torn off.

I have installed pressure plates that were supposed to have dowel locator pins but were missing and they never caused a vibration or destroyed a crank. I'm not there, don't have all the info of observation I cannot put my finger on the causes. The pressure plate looks like crap and I have no idea if they were trying to balance it or to align dowel pins. There are no rust spots where they drilled so this looks to be fairly fresh work. My experience has been that just using the proper bolts will bring the pressure plate to center even without installing a dowel pin. However, depending on engine 4,5,6,8 cylr they may want it in a specific placement for some bolt patterns are not symetrical.

I think you are barking up the wrong tree in tying to assign the engine damage to the crappy clutch work. You should have the block hot tanked so all the metal can be flushed from the system, the oiling passages in head will require as much if not more cleaning. The oil pump may be out of wear tolerance as well, do not forget the oil cooler. If you plan on doing this work yourself then you need a recirculating pump parts washer, if you see some light gray pockets of deposits this will be bearing metal fines which must be dug out with screwdrivers and other tools for they don't wash away.

If you can't eat off it, it's not clean enough.

Cheers,
GTM

 

[TRBOBLU]

My ACT 2600 came with one hole(not 2) just like yours from the factory. I can take pics tonight and show you. But I agree, my hole looks pretty nasty too.

 

[TRBOBLU]

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[GSX_RCR]

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Is it me, or is that lower left part of the PP complete knawed off?

 

[BUCK]

I don't think the Bearings look THAT bad - This could be from an Oil Filter Gasket / Oil Cooler screw up - or a Balance Shaft Bearing screw up - etc... Clean it up & slap some Bearings in it.

 

[GTM]

I don't think the Bearings look THAT bad - This could be from an Oil Filter Gasket / Oil Cooler screw up - or a Balance Shaft Bearing screw up - etc... Clean it up & slap some Bearings in it.

I'm not following you on the oil filter gasket unless you are suggesting oil loss and running low. I've not seen bearings look that bad on any Asian product as the norm.

I also feel he needs to account for the out of balance which I contend did NOT come from the pressure plate. He also needs to measure the crank diameters for though I didn't see a lot of damage on the rods they still may be under spec and the thrust bearing surface trashed. There is just too much going on to not take the time to identify the cause and effect or he will be doing it again in 5k-10k. My 2¢

Cheers,
GTM

 

[BUCK]

The first thing that makes me kinda mad is that i have been having this weird rubbing noise ever since i got the car. I first swapped the tranny, flyweel and still was there and did become louder.

When we pulled the pan off the car, i noticed many good sized pieces of metal everywhere. At first i had no idea what they were. These pieces of metal where everywhere in all different sizes. The conclusion is that since the clutch was not properly balanced it threw off the crank to which promoted major bearing wear. I have yet to pull the crank and such out to see but its the only logical conclusion as to why the metal was all over the inside of the motor. Anyone have any ideas or maybe know something i dont????

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My original Asian Bearings were FAR worse 20,000 excellent Oil Pressure miles ago - & Yes Oil Filter Gasket / Water Cooler Oil starvation failure is what I was suggesting COULD have cause this - As well as all that crap in his pan - I think his conclusion is totally wrong - He says it was still rubbing - I don't think any pressure plate had anything to do with those Bearings - Clean it up & slap some Bearings in it - I think the Drill bit holes are where they BALANCED the Pressure Plate.

 

[TurkF26]

there is NO REASON to balance a clutch and the flywheel on the motor. I called a shop around here in benicia and they said when you balance a motor, you do not need the clutch becuase it is already ) balanced and cannot change the balance of the motor. I asked him about those holes and he said yes they were probably done because some shop that didnt know what they were doing, tried to balance the clutch on the flywheel. So in other words, it doesnt need to be done and since it was done, there is a slight possibility it promoted the noise that i was hearing. Shop also said from the pics i showed him that it looks like it was all installed incorrectly which promoted the wear like that on the motor.

i do know that the clutch was on a 91 gsx before this car then the previous owner put it on the car i just pulled this motor from. I know that the oil screen that sucks the oil out of the pan was pretty covered in big metal shavings, RTV, some other junk,etc...

Finding out that the previous owner fried these bearings before, then replaced them before i bought the car leads me to believe that it was faulty installation. The balance shaft bearings do have some significant wear on them too.

 

[BUCK]

Those drill holes don't have a damn thing to do with any "weird rubbing noise" OR your Bearing condition - YES, Pressure Plates & Clutches & Flywheels are INDEPENDENTLY Balanced on our Passenger Vehicles & hence don't need to be Balanced as an Assembly - That beat up Pressure Plate is within all likelihood GOOD TO GO to use again, looks like an old ACT, I'd replace the Clutch - Your BSE Bearings are showing significant wear, there's a SHOCKER - Now that you have the Motor out do the BSE & move on...

 

[TurkF26]

i dont think you understand buck, i didnt take pics of it but THERE IS SIGNIFICANT scoring on the CRANK AND RODS. i am not reusing this motor because i am not pulling this thing out again. I am also not reusing that pressure plate because it is garbage. Wether the holes do anything or not, i do not want to reuse that in a brand new motor. This motor already had the bearings replaced by the previous owner less tha 10k miles ago and look at the condition of them. something seriously is wrong with that bottom end, hence why im not using it again. I dont know nor do i think i will ever know the total cause to this but the conclusions i can draw is that is was mostly due to faulty installation by the previous owner... since ACT clutches are zero balanced, i am going to buy a brand new ACT 2900 pressure plate. I have had many many ACT clutches and never seen those holes in them ever. Im not saying that they caused any problems with the motor.. the Tranny is brand new rebuild, brand new fidanza flywheel brand new mitsu TOB so either the noise was from the clutch or the bearings.

 

[GTM]

YES, Pressure Plates & Clutches & Flywheels are INDEPENDENTLY Balanced on our Passenger Vehicles & hence don't need to be Balanced as an Assembly - That beat up Pressure Plate is within all likelihood GOOD TO GO to use again, I'd replace the Clutch - Your BSE Bearings are showing significant wear, there's a SHOCKER - Now that you have the Motor out do the BSE & move on...

Buck, take a good look at that PP, the other poster is correct that a good size chunk is missing from the 7:00-8:00 position and may have included _one_ of the mounting bolts. I saved the jpg to disk and then processed it with my VuePrint which allows me to zoom and change colors/shadows where it jumps right out at you. I'm guessing someone threw it against a brick wall in disgust, bent it, then took a Saws-All and hoggeled off the bent section.

The access holes for the rivets look to have been enlarged, but more important is the fingers that contact the throw-out-bearing are not worn evenly. The lower half has a significant wear groove that is not apparent in the upper half which suggests a bent or warped PP. He can measure this on a surface plate or the flywheel. Maybe he could send it back and have them make a judgment call. I wouldn't use that even in a VW which I can do in less than 30 min.

I think you know me well enought to know I prefer to fix things but you can't make chicken salad from chicken s*it without adding a new chicken. What you or I would do we can take professional license but suggesting this to a novice who is consulting with a friend that also concludes the bearing wear is clutch related doesn't give me a lot of confidence. I, in good conscience cannot endorse taking liberties with something that has been hurt this bad.

Cheers,
GTM

 

[PastDue]

From what I can see, the "missing portion at 7 or 8 oclock" is merely covered by part of the black material this pressure plate is sitting on. I dont know if its a black towel or seatcover or what. But it appears that a portion of it is slightly folded over that portion of the pressure plate. You can see the fabric weaves sticking over the edge of the PP making it appear as though its jagged.

PastDue

 

[TurkF26]

ya its the blanket you guys...

but GTM you are right about the wear from the fingers that contact the TOB. I never thought to look nor did i notice till you said something. i never said that the clutch caused the bearing wear, it was a thought or idea but didnt know for sure. I do know for sure that the motor was taken apart by the previous owner and reassembled with new bearings. It appears that everything was installed incorrectly. When i went to pull this 6 bolt motor out of my car, the previous owner didnt even remove the rear motor mount that was attached to the block, instead it was CUT OFF with an angle grinder... thats right CUT OFF... he couldnt even remove the 2 bolts it was just CUT OFF!! also the timing components were barely bolted on (hand tight bolts) not to mention the wiring job done...

 

[GTM]

ya its the blanket you guys...

but GTM you are right about the wear from the fingers that contact the TOB. I never thought to look nor did i notice till you said something.

When i went to pull this 6 bolt motor out of my car, the previous owner didnt even remove the rear motor mount that was attached to the block, instead it was CUT OFF with an angle grinder... thats right CUT OFF... he couldnt even remove the 2 bolts it was just CUT OFF!! also the timing components were barely bolted on (hand tight bolts) not to mention the wiring job done...

As a professional you learn to look before you take something apart so you get some idea of the history. People say something has never been taken apart and then I look and see bruised bolt heads, washers turned upside down, non factory glue, scars and scratches that the average person never notices.

If this is a 6 bolt TSI with piston oilers then it's worth keeping. I could just see the PO throwing them away and not plugging the passages. They never had crank walk or half the other problems of the later engines. Hopefully you got the big port head and it's not trashed.

Cheers,
GTM

 

[TurkF26]

well ive been looking into lots of options and pretty much am looking at this:

2g pistons on the 1g rods, arp hardware, clevite bearings.

i really dont want to get aftermarket pistons because my car is FWD and i will not really not benefit from that. anyone else think this is a good way to go or are there better things with stock parts?? may even go with some aftermarket rods but that would be about it.

 

[BUCK]

From what I can see, the "missing portion at 7 or 8 oclock" is merely covered by part of the black material this pressure plate is sitting on. I dont know if its a black towel or seatcover or what. But it appears that a portion of it is slightly folded over that portion of the pressure plate. You can see the fabric weaves sticking over the edge of the PP making it appear as though its jagged.

PastDue

BINGO~! GTM you need some of those dime store reading Glasses like I have to use.

 

[TurkF26]

um yes i already said and told everyone that it was the blanket that was covering it...

 

[fastezz]

Hey frank I really tihnk the noise that youthought was the tranny is the tranny its just the imput shaft this tranny on my car does it my last tranny does it tommys gsx tranny did it and aswell as his 180sx its just the noise of the input shaft and thats why it goes away when you press in the clutch.