Main bearings, rod bearings, gaskets

[earlbrown]

The cause of the failure had nothing to do with debris but there might be debris because of the failure. I'm not sure how far scrubbing and cleaning the block will go if there is debris under the bearings.

If there's debris under the bearings or behind the oil galley no amount of cleaning will get it out without removing them.

I did find, save and print your two post on the front covers setup, good info.

For some reason I was thinking I wrote 3..... odd

Oh yeah, Mobil1 won't kill your engine. If so, every damn car I own would be dead.

 

[obrut]

How would I know without removing the bearings? Should I just have the machine shop remove the bearings, clean the block and install some TA-1557 cam bearings?

 

[v6turbo87]

This being the third time going through your engine you don't want to leave anything to chance. Send the block out to have the cam bearings removed, clean the block, and have new cam bearings installed.

Posted from the TurboBuick.Com mobile app

 

[earlbrown]

And go back with Dura Bond bearings. If you want to pay a little extra, get them with a 'T' on the end of the part number for teflon coated.

Plus, if you're down this far there's no reason to reuse cam bearings. ANY wear on the front bearing hemorrhages oil the rest of the engine doesn't get. It's the first place pressurized oil goes in the engine.

 

[obrut]

Product ID: TA_1557-TEFLON
231 V6 20 BOLT CAM BEARING TEFLON COATED


231 V6 with 20 Bolt oil pan. Hardened, Dual Groove, Dual Feed.

~TEFLON Coated~ on the I.D. of the bearing.

Price: $85.00

Are these the bearings your talking about?

 

[earlbrown]

I was talking about something like these...

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/dur-bp-13t/overview/make/buick

the non teflon coated are $20.

 

[obrut]

I was talking about something like these...

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/dur-bp-13t/overview/make/buick

the non teflon coated are $20.

I'll spend the extra 20 for the teflon coated. If I buy the install tool (I think a buddy has one I could borrow) are the cam bearing something I can install after removing the old ones and cleaning the block or is there some magic that needs to happen to get them right?

 

[earlbrown]

If you have a cam bearing installation tool that works with Buick bearings, you're good to go. Unless you crash a set, then you've spend $50 on a second set, and could have paid to have them installed cheaper.


Decisions, decisions....

 

[obrut]

My buddy does have a universal cam tool that I can use and I do like to learn how to do things myself. Even if I screw it up twice its still cheaper than having it done, I'm going to give it a try. My block has been tapped for screw in galley plugs so nothing I need to do there but remove them and install them after cleaning.

What else?

 

[obrut]

Here is my order to summitracing
Dura-Bond BP-13T - Dura-Bond High Performance Coated Bearings
Fel-Pro BS40613 - Fel-Pro Rear Main Seals
Fel-Pro MS96037 - Fel-Pro Intake Manifold Gaskets
King Engine Bearings CR6616SI - King SI-Series Rod Bearings
King Engine Bearings MB443AM - King AM-Series Main Bearings
Moroso 61820 - Moroso Engine Cleaning Brush Sets
Summit Racing SUM-PG1 - Summit Racing® Plastigage

Then from Kirban I'm ordering the
7133 valve cover, oil pan etc cork gasket kit
7576 VR head gaskets

Any other input before I order this stuff?

Thanks for all of the replys

 

[earlbrown]

I would get a can of The Right Stuff and do away with the oil pan gasket. It's so much easier to have to do it one and not pour expensive oil on the crossover pipe.

On the galley plugs make sure you have a shallow one of the PS galley. If it goes too deep it will pinch off oil flow to the entire engine. On the upside the gauge will indicate awesome pressure..... on the down side the engine won't see it.

Clock the front cam bearing 'wrong' so it injects the oil at 5:00 ish when viewed from the front. If your block has fully grooved cam bores do the rest of them that way too.

 

[jowy]

Check the roads. 3 roads go front the other go Back Not the same to a 8 cylinder the roads go the same way

 

[CGASTON]

I would get a can of The Right Stuff and do away with the oil pan gasket. It's so much easier to have to do it one and not pour expensive oil on the crossover pipe.

On the galley plugs make sure you have a shallow one of the PS galley. If it goes too deep it will pinch off oil flow to the entire engine. On the upside the gauge will indicate awesome pressure..... on the down side the engine won't see it.

Clock the front cam bearing 'wrong' so it injects the oil at 5:00 ish when viewed from the front. If your block has fully grooved cam bores do the rest of them that way too.

Why the 5 o'clock position? Please explain...

 

[robzombie]

Why the 5 o'clock position? Please explain...

Probably because it will take the load off the bearing.

Oil pressure takes the load off the bearing. Load on bearing is greatest at the six o'clock position.

 

[robzombie]

Check the roads. 3 roads go front the other go Back Not the same to a 8 cylinder the roads go the same way

RODS damn it RODS!!!

If your rods hit the roads that would be very BAD!!!!

 

[obrut]

Placing my summitracing order this afternoon. My buddy did have the cam install tool so I'm good. Not sure what you mean about the rods, can someone explain or show some pics?

Tim

 

[jhanson1750]

What he is referring to is the direction the rods "face". This is due to the offset shoulder on the big or crank end of the connecting rods. Take a close look and you can see
that there is an offset to the big end that faces the counterweight closest to the rods position. Good luck you should be fine as long as you keep up with the details.
Jon Hanson
This is a great look at a bottom end built by Chris Hogeland.

 

[obrut]

So I think its going to take a week or two until I get the main bearings according to summitracing. In the mean time I'm going to knock the cam bearings out and remove the galley plugs (is it just the front two?) and clean the block. A little searching came up with dawn dish soap, hot water and lots of scrubbing with the bore brushes. Then spray everything with WD40 before drying with an air gun. Anything need to be added to this? Any other suggestions?

Should I disassemble the heads and clean them in the parts cleaner or just leave them assembled and rinse?

Anything special to clean the roller lifters and cam?

I should also disassemble my 800 mile TE44 turbo and replace the bearing or just clean? I'm not sending this to precision, I've had multiple bad experiences with them starting back with the "budget" roller cam.

I'm also going to do the EB mods to my front cover, clean and assemble while I'm waiting for the bearings.

Tim

 

[earlbrown]

If you look at the profile of a stock rod, one side on the big end was thinned down. That's because when Buick went to a split pin crank, they had to put a flap of iron between journals. Since that pushed the rods outward, they knocked off some material from one side and that's the side that goes towards the 'flap'. If you look at the balance weight you'll see a 45* bevel. Those always face outwards on the rod pairs.

 

[obrut]

I striped the front cover down to clean it and do the mods to it. I used a little easy off oven clean on the front to strip the paint off.. that was a mistake. The oven clean reacted with the aluminum (its the lye in the oven cleaner), i rinsed it with water and its in the parts washer now. I'm going to clean it in the parts washer and blast it in my media cabinet with glass bead hopefully it will clean up ok.

For the engine block I knocked the rear cam plug out then knocked the old cam bearings out. I pulled the front and rear galley plugs out and started cleaning the block. The font galley plus are the same size, how long are they supposed to be? I also noticed that 6 of the 8 ARP main studs where hand tight so I removed those too. I used the bore brush kit with about 6 cans of brake cleaner and scrubbed the entire block. I think the block is ready to go.

I have all of the bearings so I can at least get the rotating assembly back in.