Toasted thrust bearing..need advise

[azgn]

thanks for the article!

 

[turbojimmy]

Re: articles to read...

Originally posted by darkfa8
This was an email to Eric Schertz (Dynotech Performance) from the owner of Protorque (makers of torque converters). Eric then forwarded it to me to read. Very informative and should give you all some ideas on what to look for as potential causes of thrust bearing failures.

ProTorque sent me that link the first time my engine failed due to the thrust bearing getting wiped out. I had just installed a Level10-rebuilt trans with one of ProTorque's converters when the engine failed. He rebuilt the TC and sent me that link. I don't know enough about the subject to know whether or not any or all of that stuff is true, but I'm suspicious of the info based on a heated discussion on the gnttype mailing list sparked by my most recent engine failure. It doesn't seem like there's much else that can wipe the thrust bearing as fast as a bad TC would. Most of the guys with real-world experience (big names in the TR world) point to the converter and nothing else.

Now I'm on the 2nd engine failure with the same ProTorque converter (albeit it was "rebuilt" between engines). Again, I don't have enough knowledge or evidence to definitively point a finger at any one cause in particular, but the common denominator in both engine failures is the TC.

My rebuilder is going to check everything out to try to determine the cause, but the face of the converter was beat up pretty bad on the flexplate side both times the engine failed (paint beat off it, what appears to be heat damage, and hash marks). The stock 90k mile converter and a red-stripe converter I used did not have that - or any kind of damage (nor did the engine fail using those converters).

Jim