Lonn Howard wrote: ...the decision to pull the engine should be
based on your expendable income and desire to have the car on the road.
I would probably fix the lower end now, button it back up and enjoy the
car this summer...
I couldn't agree more. I bought my GT-6 with a little lower end noise.
Spoke to my then local LBC expert who assured my that the bottom ends on
the 2.0 / 2.5 L engines were quite stout and durable. After 15,000 miles
of use I pulled the pan to do a quickie bearing replacement (engine was
going to be replaced in a year with a 2.5 L). I had three spun bearings.
Most of the bearing shells were uniformly down to the copper layer. Two of
the spun shells had broken into three pieces. There was minor wear on
the crank and major wear on the rod end. I mic'ed the crank and rod end and
discovered that the crank was well within tolerance and the rod end ridges
were within spec. Since this was a semi-disposable engine and I did not
expect to drive more than about 8 to 10K additional miles on it, I chose to
bed the new bearing shell into the rod ends using epoxy to fill in the
ridges. Checked all with plastic gage before the epoxy set up. This was on
a Saturday afternoon. Drove the car to work on Monday and the bottom end
noise was gone. The oil pressure which was great after the bearing R&R
dropped 5 psi after about 50 miles of use and then stayed constant,
improved oil pressure, for the remainder of the engine's use. I mentioned
this to several colleagues at work and took quite a ribbing but that eased
off as the miles on the engine built up.
I did not get around to building up my 2.5 L engine the next winter and the
following winter I commuted to Sweden/Finland so again I did not have time
to rebuild. I drove the car with the epoxied in place bearings for 30,000
miles! When I finally did replace the engine I tried to see what damage I
could inflict on the old engine by running it at WOT for several minutes.
Out of curiosity, I dismantled the bottom end and the bearings showed some
additional wear but not appreciably more than about 50,000 miles of regular
use.
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