About a week ago, my too late you're screwed light came on (oil light). I check oil and sure enough, I add some and go on my way and all is good. Today I start up my car and start driving when I hear what sounds like a rattle coming from my engine. I knew right away that is wasn't good. So, I take it to a guy to confirm my fears. He did just that, yep the bearing is screwed. He said he doesn't know how bad it is yet, but he found a used 420a that he said he could install for $1800. At this point I really just want to get the car back on the road. In my limited searching I found that MachV has a complete rebuild kit for $550. Keep in mind that I don't really have the means to do this by myself, but does anyone have any suggestions?

its cheaper to buy a rebuild kit and have a shop install it all
I thought its about 5-600 bucks for a shop to install a complete bottom end kit.

why not see if you can replace the bearings? more than likely you will need to have the crank machined at the rod journals, and then you can buy oversized? (you know what I mean) rod bearings. they make them in the standard sizes .010 etc.

good luck.. have the mechanic measure the journal to see how bad it is, chances are it can be machined and fixed.

the most you'd have to replace would be the crankshaft.

If you spun a bearing, you HAVE to replace the rod also. It puts stress on it and unless he caught it on the first knock (doubful) then just think, that's 100+ torque going at whatever rpms that that rod is hitting the crank. I"m sure you can just replace the crankshaft if you want and "maybe" not hear anything, but I definately wouldnt. And b/c our rods are "break-a-way" rods, they cant be machined, so you need to buy a new one or off of someone else. You also have to buy a new oil pump, just incase you have shavings that possibly were sucked up in the oil pick up tube. So in my opinion (and I've done this before, 2x actually on a 420a) Get the crank turned (if possible), get a rod, melling oil pump, head gasket and head bolts. If you want to keep your old timing belt on, then go ahead, but since you gotta take it all off, might as well change it too. It sounds hard, but it really isnt that hard at all, when I spun a bearing in my car on DEC 17 2002, I knew absolutely nothing about a car except to change the oil. I was forced to fix it myself, b/c I didnt have the money to let someone else do it, and through this website and chattin w/ people from here, I got it done, completely rebuilt my engine, and I know a billion times more now since I did back then..So unless you dont care to spend the money, fix it yourself. If you wanna spend the money, get them to fix it. You can hit me up on aim if ya need any help.. g'luck PEACE (RAWDAWGSTV is my aim name)

About a week ago, my too late you're screwed light came on (oil light). I check oil and sure enough, I add some and go on my way and all is good. Today I start up my car and start driving when I hear what sounds like a rattle coming from my engine. I knew right away that is wasn't good. So, I take it to a guy to confirm my fears. He did just that, yep the bearing is screwed. He said he doesn't know how bad it is yet, but he found a used 420a that he said he could install for $1800. At this point I really just want to get the car back on the road. In my limited searching I found that MachV has a complete rebuild kit for $550. Keeping in mind that I don't really have the means to do this by myself, but does anyone have any suggestions?

check my reply to the one in general

if you are gonna put $1800 in it, get some good parts, and build it up while you are at it. Just get a new crank, high comp pistons etc and it should be comparable price wise. This will give you the added power too. why get a used motor when you dont know anything about it.

Another thing is that my oil had to go somewhere. I must have had a leak somewhere. I would hate to put money into my engine just to find out that it could happen again.

Originally posted by miedosoracing
if you are gonna put $1800 in it, get some good parts, and build it up while you are at it.

amen to that. how did you check your oil and have it missing also?

Im thinking if there was a puddle every day below your car, it tells you where the leak was. If you have like 150,000 miles on it, it could be blowing out of the valve seals or rings. You aren't giving us much to go by. Sounds like you don't ever check your oil? Just wait til the red light goes on? As far as the engine, if you build it up, the shop would find cracks when they check it over, and it could be the head, but they would find it as well. They magnaflux it to see cracks.

Originally posted by miedosoracing
Im thinking if there was a puddle every day below your car, it tells you where the leak was. If you have like 150,000 miles on it, it could be blowing out of the valve seals or rings. You aren't giving us much to go by. Sounds like you don't ever check your oil? Just wait til the red light goes on? As far as the engine, if you build it up, the shop would find cracks when they check it over, and it could be the head, but they would find it as well. They magnaflux it to see cracks.

I changed my oil when I brought my car out of storage in April. Since then I have put about 2500 miles or so on it. I have never seen any puddles or other signs of an oil leak. The car has 64k miles on it. The guy at the shop said that the leak could be in the head, something about the back corners of cylinder 1 and 4 being a common problem.

Originally posted by mbenz910
About a week ago, my too late you're screwed light came on (oil light). I check oil and sure enough, I add some and go on my way and all is good. Today I start up my car and start driving when I hear what sounds like a rattle coming from my engine. I knew right away that is wasn't good. So, I take it to a guy to confirm my fears. He did just that, yep the bearing is screwed. He said he doesn't know how bad it is yet, but he found a used 420a that he said he could install for $1800. At this point I really just want to get the car back on the road. In my limited searching I found that MachV has a complete rebuild kit for $550. Keep in mind that I don't really have the means to do this by myself, but does anyone have any suggestions?

Everyone here gave some good advice so here is some more. Throw in some 20 50 and you'll still be able to drive it for about 5-15K miles, yes the rod will need replacing and machining on the crank is necessary. Dodge carries 3 different sizes so have the crank machines apporpriately and you'll be ok

If I'm not mistaken, I think dodge only had oversized bearings in mm.. so .25mm, .50mm, .75mm. I may be wrong, but pretty sure.

Originally posted by mbenz910
About a week ago, my too late you're screwed light came on (oil light). I check oil and sure enough, I add some and go on my way and all is good. Today I start up my car and start driving when I hear what sounds like a rattle coming from my engine. I knew right away that is wasn't good. So, I take it to a guy to confirm my fears. He did just that, yep the bearing is screwed. He said he doesn't know how bad it is yet, but he found a used 420a that he said he could install for $1800. At this point I really just want to get the car back on the road. In my limited searching I found that MachV has a complete rebuild kit for $550. Keep in mind that I don't really have the means to do this by myself, but does anyone have any suggestions?

We also sell a rebuild kit. http://www.howellautomotive.com/Howell/Store/catalog/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=142_38_174&products_id=1207 You will need to have the crank turned and replace the rod that has the spun bearing. You can order the bearings in whatever size they need to turn the crank to.

I've pretty much decided that I'm going to just rebuild my engine and add a couple goodies to it. I'm going to have the crank knife-edged and go with bigger bearings I won't know what size until the crank is done. What else would be good to add while I have this all apart? TIA.

well are you doing a full rebuild or just your bottom end? While you have the engine out, you can always easily replace the clutch, lightened flywheel, eagle/crower rods, forged pistons (compression depending on what you have/will do to your engine), lighten your crank (knife edge like you said), melling oil pump(must replace pump w/ a spun bearing anyways), you can have your cylinders bored out, man the list goes on. That is just for the bottom end, the top end you can do w/o havin the engine out, but since you have it out, of course everything is easier to get to. Go w/ a udp, fidanze cam gears, camshafts (depending again on what you want from your engine for the type of cam), have your head milled (if you wanna go all motor, not turbo), then work on your exhaust, which can be as easily done w/ the motor in than out. The possibilities are endless, your wallet is what's not. So you can go from there. g'luck