Swallowing my pride, I have done what I have told others not to do. I neglected to keep an eye on my oil level AND... my #1 cylinder rod came a knockin!

The quick and easy solution was to buy a used engine install and be back on the road in a couple days. I found a used engine with unknown miles on it for about 2 grand delivered. Swapped the orignal for the junkyard, fire it up and it sounds terrible and leaked so much oil from the rear main that it ruined the clutch in process! The source for the engine was very good about returning and refund (thankfully).

At this point I am a week into the mess and I decide that the next best option is to rebuild the bottom end. Upon dissasembly we found a spun rod bearing on the first cylinder. Everything else looks great. I have a rod on the way and dropped the crank at my local machine shop. I'll probably end up with stock rods, crank, new bearings and install some CP Pistons while it is apart.

Here are some pics of the project....





More to come as project moves along....

 

Nice! I had this done last December. I bought my MCS with a bad engine, and eventually I lost a cylinder. Might want to bore it out and go for larger forged pistons while you're at it since it's all out. Mine is 1.65L now.

 

Sorry for your hardship.
Great to see the young guy (your son I am guessing) at least looking interested in the engine.

 

Yes, that's my son. He likes to help "work on cars", which to him, usually means rolling around on the creeper. He did enjoy taking out all of the bolts for the timing cover.

 

Update: Back on the road!

My machine shop ground the crank, cleaned it all up and assembled the short block for me, picked it up on Wednesday of last week. A good friend and I started assembling the engine Saturday morning at 9am. Fortunately had all the right parts, gaskets and torque specs. This process took most of the day, we completed out of car assembly around dinnertime. At that point we realized we could probably bolt the engine and get it running that evening.

After dinner we installed the engine/transmission assembly, bolted, plugged and plumbed till about 1AM when I turned the key and WHA-LA! IT lives and breathes again!!

I ended up building it back to stock spec, parts for these little cars are not cheap!! All the bearings, gaskets, new bolts, and misc little replacement parts sure add up! I did port match the head. Once I break it in, I'll add a cam.

PS> Thanks Herbie & K-huevo for tech help etc...

 

man that's awsome . you guys worked hard!!! what the cp's run ya?

 

CP's? Pistons? My stock pistons were in perfect shape so I just re-ringed em.

On a side note, Sunday evening I picked up my friend that helped me for a victory drive, 24 miles in, we smelled smoke and power steering was dead!! Pull into a gas station to find the PS pump had fried itself in a big way, I thought the car was on fire from the amount of smoke it produced. Would have been nice to know that pump was on it death bed BEFORE we put it all back together.

 

Just curious, did you use any of the break in secrets to seal your piston rings? The guy has some compelling evidence. I plan on using his method if I ever have to rebuild my engine.

 

kinda sucks breakin in rings same time as bearings . rings want high revs ; bearings dont . that's what i did too . the pistons were fine but for a seized ring on #4 . slight scuff but i didn't much care . it's a dd .

 

I've witnessed the run it hard technique from some race teams, TC Kline being one of them. The cars were run hard on track right out of the box, intentionally. His philosophy was it loosened everything up a little bit. When this car was new, I did a track weekend at about 500 miles with that in mind.

I'm using dino oil for the first 1500 miles then to synthetic. With one change, probably this weekend. Dino oil s so cheap comparatively!

So yes, I guess I am using some motomans techniques.

 

How did the pistons look when you first took the engine apart?

 

Not the best pic, they did not look bad.

 

Was your P/S fan not working? I keep reading about fried P/S pumps... what are some of the symptoms?

With regards to the oil level, didn't your oil warning (idiot) light come on? How long do you think the engine was low on oil before #1 came knocking?

BTW, the way the dipstick is positioned makes for an un-uniformed reading on the hash marks. One side looks over-filled while another looks a bit low.

 

The fan was working and still is. I think the pump had been going south for a while. It was pretty loud, actually one of the first things we noticed when starting the car for the first time. "Wow, that pump steering pump is loud!" Just dumb luck it went when it did.

I was driving around around an exit ramp when I it happened. If the light came on, I didn't see it. It was probably starved for only a couple of seconds, which is enough. I did'nt notice the knock until I drove by a fence along road with reverberated the knock knock back to me.

Not sure how long it was down, I was about due for a change, but it had never consumed so much oil between changes, I got lazy and failed ot look at it.

 

Hey there, was wondering if you could advise the shop that did the crank work for you - I have a spun #1 also, and crank is at the shop, but they can't find the specs...

Much appreciated.