Generally if you don't have rod knock and if your oil pressure is good
with a good gauge, then the bearings should be doing fine for now. If
you were racing the car then you might want to know that your bearings
are in better shape. You could also switch to a thicker oil to help
with this. If you are getting much bearing material flaking into the
oil then eventually you would start to hear rod knock or you could see
your oil pressure drop when the engine is hot and at low engine speeds.
On most engines, once you pull the oil pan off then you have access to
all of the bearings. (Sometimes the big battle is actually getting the
pan off.)
You should have easy access to all of the rod bearings. Once you pull
the nuts/bolts from the bottom of the connecting rod then the rod cap
and lower half of the bearing will come off, and you can move the crank
and push the piston up to get more room to access the upper half of the
bearing. You can wipe off the bearing and look at it, and feel of the
crank journal to see if it is smooth or not. You can also buy some
platigage and check the clearance between the bearing and the crank journal.
You can't easily lower the crankshaft although that would be possible if
you really had to, but you can pull off the main bearing caps and the
lower half of the bearing should come off with it. You can inspect the
bearing and the crank journal, and do the plastigage thing if you wish.
On most engines it is simple to replace the bearings too. Most bearings
have a tab that fits into a slot in the block, to keep the bearing from
rotating. So with the main cap off the upper half of the bearing will
rotate out one way but not the other. It is easy enough to use the new
bearing shell to push out the old bearing shell, just get the tabs in
the right place.
We used contact cement to stick the gasket to the pan. This is to hold
it in place, not actually seal it. It does the sealing on its own. In
the old days we didn't have RTV but there were other sealers that could
be used between the side pan gasket and the front and back gaskets. Now
RTV would be the thing to use, just put a dab at the joint between the 2
gaskets then put the pan in place.
> Do I read this to say that the #1 and #2 mains might be inspected or
> changed without pulling the engine. If so, then how would this be done? It`s
> been a long time, but I seem to recall that the mechanics in the shop where I
> worked got the lower main shells out by just dropping the cap.Then I think
> they used a small tool to somehow hold or push out the upper main shells as
> they turned the crank.
|