Vibration / Rear Main Seal leak on brand new engine.

[Chillin014]

Everything except the flywheel was pulled off. I didnt really notice the vibration when running the motor this way so I think its safe to assume the issue is due to the pilot bushing not being in there. Regardless, damage has been done as the rear main oil leak was practically pouring out when I ran the motor for this short amount of time. I drained the oil and it looked very copper colored with shiney flakey-ness. The oil filter looked the same when I opened it. I assume this just means there is a lot of metal in the oil.
I've just about got the motor ready to come out. So I'll try to get some pictures later today.

 

[Chillin014]

Okay get ready for this. I took both the front and rear main caps off to look at the bearings and here's what I saw. I havent removed any of the other caps (if thats the correct terminology) but I figure with this much damage to both sides it's safe to say I'm going to need to remove the crank and have everything re-done.

My questions now are...what are the chances the rod bearings were damaged as well? and if I buy an internally balanced crank, will that work if I use the proper balancer and flywheel? Or will my rods not allow for that kind of swap. Thank you.

 

[464elcamino]

Damn I feel bad now , I was kinda hoping that wasnt going to be the problem I would pull a few of the rod caps and check if there was lots of metal they maybe shot , but scince they dont ride on the journals you maybe lucky. I would check and see if your crank could be polished out versus buyin it new if ya dont have to . Ive seen worse get polsihed and work well.

 

[Chillin014]

haha thanks, well it was probably my fault..the pilot bearing just completely slipped my mind. Dont you think I should get all new bearings if I get the crank polished though? I'm thinking I may have to just drop this back off at the machine shop because I dont know if I trust myself to install everything properly again. I've got a ton of money into this thing. I was only proposing replacing the crank as sort of a way to save money on machine shop costs and/or upgrade to a stronger crank. The motor is supposed to be putting out over 400 horsepower and I was advised not to play with any power adders due to the crank being the weakest component.

 

[464elcamino]

Yeah definitly it will need bearings, and yeah take it back to the shop maybe theyll cut ya a break scince they assembled it .

 

[gmtofd]

2X on polishing the journals and maybe going with .001 undersize bearings, depending on how journals measure after polishing. If the crank was undersize when assembled, I think bearings come .011 and .021.

Good luck.

 

[SSedan64]

Most all Internal balance 400 Cranks require using 6" Rods as the counter weights are a larger Dia. You would have to have it balanced with your Pistons & Rods, they don't come Pre-balanced.
Need to figure out what caused the Bearing wear.
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/bearingwear/bearingwearanalysis.htm
http://www.engineparts.com/publications/CL77-3-402.pdf

 

[Chillin014]

Okay nevermind on the internally balanced crankshaft idea then. I am fairly certain the bearing failure is due to the lack of the pinion bearing. Cool page though for diagnosis. I'm going to try to get it to my machine shop early next week.

 

[Chillin014]

Horrible news guys. I just talked to the machine shop who looked over my engine. Apparently the whole thing pretty much needs to be rebuilt. He said even the camshaft itself started flaking. So apparently I need new rod bearings, new crankshaft bearings, new lifters, new camshaft, and the crankshaft to be re-cut. I'm already crying for how much this is going to cost me. The whole build feels like a sunk cost at this point.

Repair bill quote is 1146.86. 600 labor, the rest is parts. I've already got probably over 3 grand into this thing.

 

[slimbo]

i ran 5.7 rods with my internal balance 3.750 crank. just needs some mallory to balance out. that repair bill isnt too bad for the amount of work required. the big question is why? seems like an oiling issue if the cam is wiped as well.