Well, I can now tell you that although the pistons are in the wrong
cylinders, it is only the caps on rods 1 and 4 that are interchanged. The
chap responsible for this abortion by the way, is RICHARD SMITH at
IMAGINATION ENGINEERING in ORLANDO, FL.. I tell you his name so you may
avoid the guy and his business. He has lied straight faced to me repeatedly,
and I have proof. Triumph and Morgan owners in the Florida area DO NOT USE
THIS GUY - HE'S A COWBOY.
Any way, life goes on. This is a TR3 engine , I use 20-50 oil. Supposedly,
the head was pulled, valves etc done, pistons removed, new rings fitted and
cylinders honed. The connecting rod bearing shells are still silver - there
is some scoring and scuffing, but not through to the copper. There were no
shims used.
The oil pump rotor actually had 15 thou clearance - 5 thou too much, so I'll
replace it. The crank is std. and has not been ground before. The car was
not smoking, or steaming. Only a very small amount of coolant was getting
into the oil and the car didn't run particularly hot, around 190-200 degrees
on a hot day.
I am not familiar with using plastigauge. What is the accepted tolerance for
connecting rod bearings? And what color plastigauge should I buy? Also what
is a 'figure of eight' gasket?
Regards,
Jeff
Colin wrote:
"Hey Jeff,
Sounds like you may have some troubles, alright.
I don't recall you saying what engine you have but I seem to remember it
being a TR4.
I take it the DPO told you that the engine had been overhauled.
The oil pressure is somewhat low but not horrible. 50 lbs. at speed and
15 at idle at temp is not great but also, IMHO, not bad enough to rate
any rebuild effort, particularly if funds are tight. You should be
running a single weight (not multi-viscosity) oil, I would imagine you
are using 30 weight and you might want to change that to a heavier
grade.
It sounds like you have a blown head gasket or cracked head but you
should have been aware of that from smoke/steam... You did not say that
the car has been run really hot. You did not say that you have been
seeing oil crawling up the dipstick... If you are not seeing these
things, and funds are a consideration, you might try adding some
Barr's-leak, Stopleak, or something like that to try and plug the hole.
(Many people do not like to use these products, saying it just delays
the inevitable, but I know of cars that have run for many years with
these products.)
I think the seepage you describe could also result from a bad (or
improperly installed) cylinder sleeve.
The bearing problem sounds much more serious in the short term. The
mismatched caps could definitely cause your knock and if it is knocking
then you probably are looking at doing a real overhaul including turning
the crank. Are you sure the caps are mismatched? Remember that one way
to mark them is with a nail punch, making one dot for number one, two
dots for number two, and so forth. Were shims used on the caps?
If you are sure they are mismatched you should definitely pull the caps
and inspect for damage to the crank. You may need to have it reground.
Whether to swap the caps around to make them "right" is a tough call. If
the wrong caps are installed, maybe the DPO had the engine "line bored"
to make them match up (sorta). Such a procedure would not make any sense
but if that happened, then swapping them back will lead to more
problems. I guess my inclination would be to put them back like they
should be, using a lot of plastigage to make sure they have the correct
clearance. I assume you will be installing new bearing shells.
It sure sounds like the DPO pulled the pistons and just threw all the
parts in a box somewhere... Then just pulled parts out randomly to
reassemble. Hard to believe that anybody who would undertake the job to
begin with would be dumb enough to do that.
Have you established that this is the original engine? I seem to
remember that it isn't and if not, you may want to look around for a
used engine.
I am sorry this happened to you."
--Colin Cobb, Las Cruces, NM, USA
'66 Plus 4 Four Seater
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