I switched to Mobil-1 Synthetic 15w-50 and now, less than 50 miles later, I have a rod knocking pretty good. Drained the oil and found it glittering with bearing shavings. It sounds like only 1 rod... probably #3 or #4. This SUCKS!

I'm using Eagle rods, JE pistons, Clevite 77 bearings, and a Melling oil pump. Oil pressure never dropped and the engine was still full of oil... the oil is still fresh and transparent. I switched from conventional 10w-30 to the synthetic ~1200 miles after the rebuild.

Rods were balanced within 0.1g and rod caps torqued per Eagle/ARP specs. Bearings were properly lubed when installed.

WTF happened? I'm stumped! I can only narrow it down to the motor oil. I'm pulling the pan tomorrow.

Jesus Christ, that SUCKS. Hard to believe it's *just* the oil that caused it though, but that that few miles on the rebuild... :(

Yeah, switching to Synthetic too soon is the only possible reason I can think of. What sucks is I just got the car registered for street-driving and NEED to drive it on Monday. I guess I'll pull the pan, check things out, and replace all 4 sets of rod bearings. Hopefully I can get a set on a SUNDAY!

Here's what synlubes.com says about it:

"We prefer to wait at least 1,500 miles before switching over a new engine to synthetic lubricants. The seating of rings and wear in of other engine parts usually occurs within the first 500 miles and should definitely have been accomplished by 1,500 miles on today's new engines. Under 1,500 miles you should follow the manufacturer's recommendation for drain intervals and break procedures. Furthermore, waiting to at least 1,500 miles gives you the opportunity to assess the mechanical soundness of the engine and the opportunity to report any unusual conditions that may indicate a latent mechanical defect in your new engine. If there is any question about the mechanical soundness of your new engine do not install any synthetic lubricants. "

I just remembered I was right at 1000 miles on the re-built engine. I dropped the oil pan and the engine was left with no oil for about 7 days while I performed upgrades to the car's exhaust. That's when I added the Mobil-1 Syn. 15w-50. Again, 50 miles later the rod started knocking... I immediately shut it down. I hope I can just replace the bearing and not pull/reuild the engine again. I do have a backup block though. *sigh*

It's all part of the sport, though... ya gotta pay to play.

Yeah, time to swap out the rod bearings, cross your fingers and hope for the best... good luck, man. ;( Double check the oil passages on that journal while you're in there, just in case

Autozone or a store like that will probably be your best bet for parts though, that's gonna suck.

damn doug, I love that car, please get more pics :)

Ouch Doug! That sucks, same problem as me, just not to my extent, be happy :thumbsup why did you want to change to full synthetic anyways?

PS: If you need an xtra hand, cuz Matt aint there or something, I'll drop by. (lol couldnt do much, but grab ya a coke or something tho)

1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse GS 10th Anniversary OZ Edition
Check Out My Site For Pix
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/EclipseRaceR/MyEclipse/VIS%20CF%20Hood/

Yeah man... comeon over if ya want... I'll be in the garage... headed out there right now. later

i wouldn't recomend changing to synthetic that soon id wait longer but thats me...

there are a couple things taht i can think of as the cause

1 draining all the oil for aweek probably left the pickup tube dry and maybe the oil pump lost its prime, that would shoot air into the oil system...

theory two the oil at 15w was too thick and couldn't provide enough lubricating properties for the stock oil celarances...

theory 3 oil pump hickuped..

Bill

Well, contrary to my guess, it was rod #1 causing the knock. The bolts came out of that rod cap a little tighter than the others and the oil on the bolts was gray from bearing material. Pulled off the cap and the bearing has significant wear on one side only, approx. 1/2" wide. I'm still stumped on the cause... I still think it was related to the motor oil. I'm going to replace these Clevite 77 bearings with Mopar bearings and check the clearences. I'll get pics up ASAP.

what were your clearances on the bearings?

Bill

did u use plastiguage to check?

Yes I used plastigage and everything was within good specs and torqued to specs.

Alighty... here's the pics... give me your insight here guys...

edit : nm they're starting to work:)

hehe... you're quick... I posted then uploaded the pics.

So what's the word? I was gunna come over today to see but the weather got shitty. If you need some help im available most nights from this Wednesday on

what did u use to lube the bearings and how much did u use?

Bill

im still sticking with the fact i think that 15w oil was too thick for your clearances....


but if u got any lube behind the bearing then it would cause not enough clearance and do that to bearings...

The bearings were moly lubed properly upon installation.

Well, that bearing really doesnt look terrible(I've seen much worse), but It doenst take much to make it knock. Oil starvation is the main culprit of damaged bearings, so my guess is just that. I forsee 2 things: 1- the lenght of time with oil outof the pickup tube and oil pump- 2- the viscosity of the oil that was used. 15W-50 is pretty heavy oil. An idea is that it took too long to get oil into the bearings, since the entire oil system had to prime and then pump the really thick oil. It doenst take but seconds of poor lubrication on a bearing to damage it. How does the crank jorunal look? At least if that ok, then its not a big deal to fix. I run the Mopar bearings also, and have had no issues with them. Used normal Dino oil for break in, and switched to MObil 1 synth, 5w-30 after 3000 miles. I *highly* doubt switching to synthetic oil actually did that. The motor was fully broken in at over 1000 miles. The bearings really dont "break in" so to speak anyway, its mostly for piston ring/cyldinder wall break in. Oil starvation most likely. Stupid Q, but you did have proper torque on the rod bolts, correct?

>>I forsee 2 things: 1- the lenght of time with oil outof the pickup >>tube and oil pump- 2- the viscosity of the oil that was used.

Yea, I'm with XtremeRS on this one...

>>>I forsee 2 things: 1- the lenght of time with oil outof the
>pickup >>tube and oil pump- 2- the viscosity of the oil that
>was used.
>
>Yea, I'm with XtremeRS on this one...


Yea i Think i said this in post 8=)
but thanks for the backup Xtreme

dougie dude that sux man...

it was not the bearings fault as the bearing should never have metal to metal contact in an ideal properly running motor...

Bill

>>>>I forsee 2 things: 1- the lenght of time with oil outof
>the
>>pickup >>tube and oil pump- 2- the viscosity of the oil that
>>was used.
>>
>>Yea, I'm with XtremeRS on this one...

Sounds about right. What's the best way to get the system primed up good when I get everything put back together?

>
>Sounds about right. What's the best way to get the system
>primed up good when I get everything put back together?
>

When I did my rebuild, I disconnected the Ignition and Fuel relays on the driver firewall, and cranked over the motor for a bit. I believe I cranked the motor about 5 times, for 5 second intervals. Or, just wait until you can see some oil pressure start to build. You prob wont see very much pressure, as low cranking rpm wont build much pressure, but the point is to get the oil into the pickup tube, and into the oil pump and gallerys. Go with some 5w-30 weight oil too. I rebuilt my oil pump, and I "primed" my pump upon install. I filled the oil pressure relief spring hole fully with oil. You just uncrew the retainer bolt that holds the spring and relief valve in, and pour in the oil. You may want to do this, anytime you have the pan dropped and motor without oil for any length of time

Thanks man! Where's the pressure relief valve located at?

>Thanks man! Where's the pressure relief valve located at?

Its directly on the oil pump housing. It will be located by the T-belt tensioner plunger, and near the t belt gear on the crank. It will face the rear/firewall side of the motor. Not sure how accessable it will be with the crank pulley on there. I know i can reach it with the AFX underdrive pulley..let me see if I can find a pic...ahh cool, found an old pic..I'm pointing to the plug. It just screws right in. Might be a PITA to get at with everything on, not too sure though, never have taken it out with the car all together..

for the record, i ran 10W-30 non-synthetic on my Howell shortblock for the first 500 miles, then changed the oil again with some more 10W-30, then at 3000 miles i changed it with Mobil 1 15W-50. i've never had any problems.

None of those bearings look great. They should have an even polish to them, a consistant look to the whole brearing surface. Those don't appear to. I'd say that's a short spat of oil starvation, with the posibility of an uneven journal surface as a contributing factor. Hard to tell from the pics...

heh. looks like you might have some crankshaft probs from what dino said. and yeah, i agree. its not just bearing #1. they all look pretty crapped out.

> its not just bearing #1. they all look pretty crapped out.

I know all of them have wear... I just meant that is was #1 that was knocking, as you can see the primary wear spot on the bear.

There no crankshaft problems (everything w/i specs) 1000 miles ago when it was polished, re-knifed, and t. nitrite teated. I've deduced everything down to the oil. I hope the main bearings are okay. A new set of Clevite 77 rod bearings will be here at 8AM in the morn.

Hey Doug, man I cant get ahold of you, um...*scared muffled voice* think we could work on my car tomorrow Tuesday? Im off after school, if it all works out with you that is...maybe I can come over in the morning while your doing your car too, if you dont mind, like I said, let me know what we can, im so needy of my car its been down for 2 months :(

PS. I know your a late type person, so I'll check this in the morning, and hopefully you'll tell me to come in the monring Tuesday, or afternoon, or some other day.


1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse GS 10th Anniversary OZ Edition
Check Out My Site For Pix
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/EclipseRaceR/MyEclipse/VIS%20CF%20Hood/

Did you prime the actual oil pump when you installed it the first time? we take all of ours apart, fill up the gear assembly with petroleum jelly(it works, just trust me) and there ya go. the jelly gives the drive gear in the oil pump something to push against upon its first startup. and i know im in way after everyone else, and i may be repeating what they have already told you, but ALL of those bearings look on the downside of acceptable. first thing you MUST do is NOT use 15w synthetic. go with 10w. and, this is just my opinion, and has worked on all the 420A's we have built....but i dont care what that synlube.com or whatever says. we always wait at least 3-4k miles to start using synthetic again after a rebuild. goodluck man.

1999 Black C5
1997 Silver RS
Wiseco 8.8:1 Pistons(back to low compression!)
Eagle Rods
T3/T4 Turbo
Custom FMIC
Greddy Exhaust
390's
Most current 1/8th mile time: 8.3@90mph 2.015 60'(Nitto Drag radials, i suck)

I ran Castrol GTX to break-in and up to 5,000 miles.
I used Castrol synblend for the next 6,000 miles.
I've used 10w30 Mobil 1 synthetic from then on.


Jon

1997 Eclipse RS

13.887@104.648 5/30/03

www.haiokuracing.com

Tuesday 6:50 am...no message...well I guess Im going to school ;(

1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse GS 10th Anniversary OZ Edition
Check Out My Site For Pix
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/EclipseRaceR/MyEclipse/VIS%20CF%20Hood/

First, you should always lube the oil pump gears on that type of oil pump, but the #1 rod almost looks like you might have had a cap on backwards, are you sure that wasn't the case??

Michael:

I worked late and now I'm going in to work so I won't be working on the engine until I get home... that'll be about 7:30PM. You can come over if you'd like, I'll be in the garage. Call the house if you ever can't get ahold of me 395-4035.

VTComp:
>the #1 rod almost looks like you might have
>had a cap on backwards, are you sure that wasn't the case??

Yeah, I'm absolutely sure it was on correctly.

I'm not even going to pick each and every dumbass comment I've heard in this thread apart.

-Your rod knock isn't because of your oil. It's knocking because it's trying to tell a joke.

"knock knock."

Who's there?

"Bear."

bear who?

"bearings, they're in the oil pan, fool!"

-Your oil isn't too thick. Mobil 1 synthetic is about as thin as water regardless of what weight you put in your engine. If Mobile 1 15w-50 is "too thick" to be drawn up into your pump, you've got other problems. Take your mobile 1 and dip your finger in it. It should feel as thick as any 10w-30 dino oil. Not DINO, dino as in Dinosaur.

Your pump should be able to suckle the dried skin off the top of Jello pudding. If you've got pudding lying around you may not want to try this, though, because it will ruin some other parts of your engine. I know, I tried it once.

-If your oil pump won't pump oil, there's no chance it'll pump AIR either, so just throw that suggestion out the window. Even if it did, air compresses, and would be shot through the system very quickly. You'd have a few seconds of air on the bearings, but who cares? Unless you were at 7500rpm when that happened (which would be immediately upon startup, if it was even conceivable at all) your bearings should not have been affected. Why? Because I said so. Don't argue. Math can't explain it.

-Your bearings look terrible, especially for them being so new. It looks like the redneck ghetto machine shop that turned your crank doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground. What's the other side of your #1 bearing look like? I think your #1 crank journal is out-of-round, or cut funny in some way. Even if you plastigauged it if you didn't do it in a few spots across the cap you could have easily mistaken it as a reasonable tolerance. When you put the rod cap back together put plastigauge across the bearing surface, parallel to the direction that the crank is. Put three little pieces, one in the center of the cap, and on near the ends of the bearings on the journal. I think you'll find something interesting when you do that. They SHOULD all be the same, but I would not be surprised if they're not.

Because of the way #1 is worn, it doesn't look like the typical lack of lubrication - it looks like the clearances on one part of the journal are wrong. Read: from looking at the bearings, it seems like your rod journal it oval instead of round.

As for those other bearings, are you sure the machine shop did a reasonable job of cutting your crank? Eek. I wouldn't cut a cast crank anyway. They're Smoking the ganja!

While you're at it wou should check your main bearings. The glitter you're describing in your oil doesn't sound like it came off those rod bearings you posted. I've pulled apart engines with worse wear on the bearings, and there was no bearing chunks to speak of in the oil.

Who assembled your engine? Was it done in a CLEAN environment? Don't lie to me, Lucy! :nono

-whatever you do, don't just swap the rod bearings and call it good. You'll end up in the same spot you are right now. You need to figure out why this happened. Back to the redneck ghetto shop!

Some of the things said in this post do make some sense, though:

XtremeRS said "Oil starvation is the main culprit of damaged bearings, so my guess is just that." That's a reasonable guess.

Motofool said "the bearing should never have metal to metal contact in an ideal properly running motor..." and he's right. The other stuff he said I don't agree with, though. :wary

Dino said: "None of those bearings look great. They should have an even polish to them, a consistant look to the whole brearing surface." and he's right on both accounts.

Nitrous RS1997 said: "Did you prime the actual oil pump when you installed it the first time? we take all of ours apart, fill up the gear assembly with petroleum jelly" and he's right. You should always fille the oil pump with something like that upon assembly. Whether it's petroluem jelly, or moly lube, or peanut butter. Okay, don't try the peanut butter. It was a joke.

Measure, measure again, plastigaue, and figure out what's up with your #1 rod journal, bearing, or rod. There's something up with it, and maybe even all the others. If it was your pump, don't you think #4 would have the most damage?

>I'm not even going to pick each and every dumbass comment
>I've heard in this thread apart.
>
>-Your rod knock isn't because of your oil. It's knocking
>because it's trying to tell a joke.
>
>"knock knock."
>
>Who's there?
>
>"Bear."
>
>bear who?
>
>"bearings, they're in the oil pan, fool!"
>
>-Your oil isn't too thick. Mobil 1 synthetic is about as thin
>as water regardless of what weight you put in your engine. If
>Mobile 1 15w-50 is "too thick" to be drawn up into your pump,
>you've got other problems. Take your mobile 1 and dip your
>finger in it. It should feel as thick as any 10w-30 dino oil.
>Not DINO, dino as in Dinosaur.
And he is right. Except for the dino part, that could very well be made of other organisms.

>Your pump should be able to suckle the dried skin off the top
>of Jello pudding. If you've got pudding lying around you may
>not want to try this, though, because it will ruin some other
>parts of your engine. I know, I tried it once.
You tried that shit? wtf? was it a, how to pump a pb&j through your crank bearings school project or what?


>-If your oil pump won't pump oil, there's no chance it'll pump
>AIR either, so just throw that suggestion out the window. Even
>if it did, air compresses, and would be shot through the
>system very quickly. You'd have a few seconds of air on the
>bearings, but who cares? Unless you were at 7500rpm when that
>happened (which would be immediately upon startup, if it was
>even conceivable at all) your bearings should not have been
>affected. Why? Because I said so. Don't argue. Math can't
>explain it.
And he's right. Air is horrible on pumps. and if it wasn't pumping the oil, it might have been pumping nothing or creating some sort of a vacuum. Math could explain it. like the physics and logic in why a pump don't pump air.


>-Your bearings look terrible, especially for them being so
>new. It looks like the redneck ghetto machine shop that turned
>your crank doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground.
>What's the other side of your #1 bearing look like? I think
>your #1 crank journal is out-of-round, or cut funny in some
>way. Even if you plastigauged it if you didn't do it in a few
>spots across the cap you could have easily mistaken it as a
>reasonable tolerance. When you put the rod cap back together
>put plastigauge across the bearing surface, parallel to the
>direction that the crank is. Put three little pieces, one in
>the center of the cap, and on near the ends of the bearings on
>the journal. I think you'll find something interesting when
>you do that. They SHOULD all be the same, but I would not be
>surprised if they're not.
Yeap. He's right. Ther is no way that you can be TOTALLY sure of everything you put on your car. there is just no way. I work on my car and just miss and forget stuff all the time. I bet you turn something up with your crank.


>Because of the way #1 is worn, it doesn't look like the
>typical lack of lubrication - it looks like the clearances on
>one part of the journal are wrong. Read: from looking at the
>bearings, it seems like your rod journal it oval instead of
>round.
>
>As for those other bearings, are you sure the machine shop did
>a reasonable job of cutting your crank? Eek. I wouldn't cut a
>cast crank anyway. They're Smoking the ganja!
You like your hondah, like you like your ganja! You smoke a v8 like you smoke marijuana!!!!!!!!!!



>While you're at it wou should check your main bearings. The
>glitter you're describing in your oil doesn't sound like it
>came off those rod bearings you posted. I've pulled apart
>engines with worse wear on the bearings, and there was no
>bearing chunks to speak of in the oil.
>
>Who assembled your engine? Was it done in a CLEAN environment?
>Don't lie to me, Lucy! :nono
Maybe he knife edged and did all the work while his crank was still in the engine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i think its pretty much commom sense to do that in a clean "environment". would anyone else leave a bunch of metal shavings on their crank then slap it on? Or wait, maybe 'tis because he put on someone elses bad bearings!!!!!!!!!


>-whatever you do, don't just swap the rod bearings and call it
>good. You'll end up in the same spot you are right now. You
>need to figure out why this happened. Back to the redneck
>ghetto shop!
>
>Some of the things said in this post do make some sense,
>though:
>
>XtremeRS said "Oil starvation is the main culprit of damaged
>bearings, so my guess is just that." That's a reasonable
>guess.
>
>Motofool said "the bearing should never have metal to metal
>contact in an ideal properly running motor..." and he's right.
>The other stuff he said I don't agree with, though. :wary
>
>Dino said: "None of those bearings look great. They should
>have an even polish to them, a consistant look to the whole
>brearing surface." and he's right on both accounts.
>
>Nitrous RS1997 said: "Did you prime the actual oil pump when
>you installed it the first time? we take all of ours apart,
>fill up the gear assembly with petroleum jelly" and he's
>right. You should always fille the oil pump with something
>like that upon assembly. Whether it's petroluem jelly, or moly
>lube, or peanut butter. Okay, don't try the peanut butter. It
>was a joke.

C'mon. someone do a writeup on how to suck pb&j sandwiches through an oil pump and shoot it into your catch can.


>
>Measure, measure again, plastigaue, and figure out what's up
>with your #1 rod journal, bearing, or rod. There's something
>up with it, and maybe even all the others. If it was your
>pump, don't you think #4 would have the most damage?


i'm sorry to say. but that was some pretty good information. except alls i gotta do now, is skip the first 5 sentences of every post you make and i can come out with a real post! woohoo! and yeah. wouldn't it seem that bearing #4 would get the least oil???

Well crap, looks like i got partially owned :o Keep up the good info there mototool! What about maybe a slightly "bent" crank? Just an idea? Having wear on that one side of the bearing though, should mean an uneven crank journal..Dougie, try that plastigauge trick, and let us know!

oh my dear god mototool posted something useful without most of the childish remarks...

hopefully this is a change for the better...

Bill

>oh my dear god mototool posted something useful without most
>of the childish remarks...

Well, you know, I was going to but I figured I would keep this thread nice and pretty for now. I've got my finger on the trigger, though :thumbsup

>hopefully this is a change for the better...

A lapse on my part, I will never let it happen again. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and thought I'd be nice for a little while.

That, and Dougie asked me to share my thoughts.

I'm with you, it looks like a piss poor crank regrind, I think this guy needs to change his grinding wheel. From what I can tell all of the bearings are worn on the outside more, that leads me to believe that his wheel has had a few too many cranks ground with it, some times plastiguage isn't enough, A good machine shop will always mic everything. Unless you put plastiguage like every .020 you can't tell if is out of round.
mototool, I'm not repeating everything you said, I'm pointing out the fact that this specific wear pattern happens when a crank grinding wheel is worn out.

>Unless you put plastiguage like every .020 you can't tell if is out
>of round.

If you put plastigauge every .020 you won't be able to tell where one strip of it starts and another one ends :rolleyes

> mototool, I'm not repeating everything you said, I'm pointing
>out the fact that this specific wear pattern happens when a
>crank grinding wheel is worn out.

Yeah, I've heard that before. Take your cronies and go stand in the corner. Hang your head in shame, and think about what you've done!

Well, a bent crank would be causing main bearing damageAre you sure that there is no damage to the mains? There are a lot of flakes in your oil, and the rod bearings, while not pretty, do not look bad enough to deposit much crap in the pan. Stock bearings, however, come apart in two layers very easily once they get hot. But the Clevites don't usually.

-=B-=

We'll you're ALL WRONG... including MotoTOOL. :P

My uncle just got here right before I was going to start the engine w/ the new bearings. His background: he's been building extremely high performance race engines for over 25 years. He took one look at the bearings that I've posted here and stated that they were all in extremely good condition. "It's not a rod knocking" he stated... "keep looking". "...and 1000 miles is fine for switching to synthetic, once the rings are seated in you're good to go."

Well, it turns out I should've listened to my gut instinct when I first pulled over b/c of the noise. The torque converter bolts are loose causing a "knock" when the RPMs increase or decrease quickly. They also "rattle" at a mid-range sustained RPM. FYI, I'm running a 3500-stall torque converter that I installed 1000 miles ago.

This is a load off my chest! Tomorrow I'll start inching the tranny sideways to get a handle on those bolts.

I've learned a lot in the last couple days trying to diagnose this problem... thanks for everyone's input and I hope you learned something too!

weither the bearings were causing the knock or not the weird marks worry me doug. hope the best for ya...

the only thing synthetic would do that would be bad is make the rings take longer to seat if they weren't already (as long as its the proper weight and such)
^^ that is the major reason most people recomend breakign the motor in on mineral oil not to mention its cheaper when your swapping out oil left and right in the begining stages of a new motor...


Bill

>weither the bearings were causing the knock or not the weird
>marks worry me doug.

The weird marks are a little deceiving in the pics... and the upper bearing halves looked different as well... they are worn more evenly and you can see the "dust layer" picking up minor dust particles. The initial "dust coating" hasn't fully worn off yet. It's actually not wearing of the bearing we're looking at... it's wearing off of the original coatings. The bearing isn't worn at all... it's still perfectly smooth to the touch. In a little while, the entire bearing will have a polished look to it... nice and even. On a side note, all rod bearing oil clearences were between .040 and .050 mm... which is right where I want it to be. The plastigauge markings are even along the gauge as well... so the crank grind is good.

>the only thing synthetic would do that would be bad is make
>the rings take longer to seat if they weren't already

That's what I said... once the rings are seated, which is WELL under 1000 miles, synthetic oil is just fine to use.

>^^ that is the major reason most people recomend breakign the
>motor in on mineral oil not to mention its cheaper when your
>swapping out oil left and right in the begining stages of a
>new motor...

Right.

Also, the bits are pieces I found in the oil are from the new parts breaking in. I guess I exagerated a little here... once I thought I found the problem, I jumped to conclusions. Another valuable lesson learned here.

>The weird marks are a little deceiving in the pics... and the
>upper bearing halves looked different as well...

The upper bearing halves look "fine" but the lowers are messed up like that? You're on crack if you think that's going to last. Break out the pipe!

>The bearing isn't worn at all... it's still perfectly smooth to
>the touch. In a little while, the entire bearing will have a
>polished look to it... nice and even.

:rolleyes

Don't you think that any wear at all should be even and true , as the bearings themselves should be even? The crank should be even, too.

>Right.

But you still have retarded wear on your bearings.

> I guess I exagerated a little here... once I thought I found the
> problem, I jumped to conclusions. Another valuable lesson learned
> here.

We'll see in the next 15,000 miles, huh?

Not everything in a engine wears *perfectly* even... this you should know. As I stated before, the bearings themself are not wearing. The bearings themself are not wearing. Read the last sentence again... good.

The Clevite bearings are designed with a copper-lead alloy on steel with a white exterior "coating". The coating "catches" and "embeds" dirt and contaminates. It's this coating that you see wearing away.

I'll take the bearings with me to the two machine shops I'm going to today. I'll let you know what they think.

>Not everything in a engine wears *perfectly* even...

bearings should wear relatively evenly - you SHOULD NOT see streaks like that on your bearings. have a nice day.

(double post)

>As I stated before, the bearings themself are not wearing. The bearings themself are not wearing. Read the last sentence again... good.

Do I need to say it a third time? It's just the "babbitt" layer doing it's job man. Are you familiar with this layer and what its function is? I wasn't until now.

Straight from Clevite 77's website as an example of a good bearing doing it's job:



Appearance: Wear patter covering approximately 2/3 of the bearing surface. Wear should diminish near the part line ends of the bearing surface. Pattern may be intermittent in both axial and circumferential directions on bimetal aluminum depending on geometry of mating surfaces.


Their Example of a scored bearing:



Appearance: Bearing surface deeply scratched and torn.
Causes: Excessive foreign particle contamination. Poor crankshaft surface finish. Insufficient lubrication.

light up the pipe!

#1 doesn't look like a "normal" bearing.

And yes, I know what babbit is. :rolleyes

>light up the pipe!

Hey! I'm good friends with Tina, ya know. :+

>#1 doesn't look like a "normal" bearing.

I think the pics are just really deceiving... even Sterling Marlin's shop guys I showed them to today reassured me that they're just fine.

>And yes, I know what babbit is. :rolleyes

Really, though... thanks for your input, I DO appreciate it.