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I’m on my 5th engine in 5 weekends. I’ve used crankscrapers on all 5 engines. On this last one I ran a 1/2 quart high.
We always clean out the oil lines and cooler. Is there anything else to clean out.
Is there anything else I could be doing wrong?
I’m shifting at 5000-5500 RPM to just be on the safe side and to try to get through one weekend with no issues. I’m not missing shifts either.
jeingold wrote:
[quote]I’m on my 5th engine in 5 weekends. I’ve used crankscrapers on all 5 engines. On this last one I ran a 1/2 quart high.
We always clean out the oil lines and cooler. Is there anything else to clean out.
Is there anything else I could be doing wrong?
I’m shifting at 5000-5500 RPM to just be on the safe side and to try to get through one weekend with no issues. I’m not missing shifts either.[/quote]
I was talking about you here:
http://spece30.com/component/option,com_kunena/Itemid,94/func,view/catid,16/id,36785/#36785
Are you swapping these motors yourself, or having a shop do it? If this is failed try # 5 at your shop I would not take my car back there ever. The M20 is a good engine I am on my 4th year of track duty with mine with no problems and I still do not have a crank scraper. Idk what your problem is, but 5 engines in 5 weekends is ridiculous there has to be an underling cause!!
I swapped the first motor. I had someone else swapped the next 3. I trust the person changing my motors. He works on all of my other cars and does a great job. He is losing money at this point and has not charged me a dime for the last 2 swaps.
Is there anything else that could be causing this? Is there anything else in the oil path that needs to be cleaned out?
I am wondering if the cleaning is the problem. What product/procedure is being used? Is there residue breaking down the oil?
What parts are failing when you lose an engine?
Steve D.
All 5 motors ended up with bearing failures. 1 of those was believed to be because of a failed oil pump.
On engines 2 and 3, I know I sent 2 oil coolers off to be cleaned out by a company that cleans airplane oil coolers. The last 2 times I’m not sure what we used.
Besides cleaning out the oil cooler and lines, do you need to clean out the filter housing or oil gauge line?
A picture wouldn’t do much good. You should rotate the crank by hand and watch and listen to any point making contact. My scrapper had to be trimmed in several different spots. Typically crank counter weight or rod journals make contact. If this was the problem, I can see that issue producing enough drag to possibly cause a bearing to fail.
edit: when my scrapper was first installed and the motor test fired, I had zero oil pressure. Quickly turned it off, pulled the pump out and found a piece of gasket material in the oil pump screen.
This has to be some sort of a record for an M20B25…
I assume these are all junkyard motors. Any idea of their mileage? What oil are you using and what oil pressure did they have at idle and at 5k cold/hot?
That’s a pisser man. Motor failures are rare, esp with a scraper. If you’re putting a scraper in the motor, take a little extra time and inspect the crank bearings and replace if showing wear.
Here is a possible solution, if you have the oil cooler lines backwards you could starve the motor. There is a thermostat that controls oil flow, if the lines are backwards the thermostat can restrict flow when it opens…I do not think it completely blocks it but it can foul things up…
learned the hard way as have others…
Al
I guess I don’t see how the oil cooler lines being backwards could restrict flow, but a plugged up oil cooler or a collapsed line would be a problem once the thermostat opened.
Have you used the same flywheel and transmission each time? I am wondering if there is something unbalanced that is transferring a strange load to the crankshaft causing the good (or at least servicable) bearings to go bad. There’s got to be a common denominator to have 5 go bad in a row.
Steve D.
I agree with Steve. There has to be something on the car that is causing it and it’s not the engine itself. 5 in a row that sound like they have been installed properly??? Something else is up.
Yes, I have ran the same transmission and flywheel with all 5 motors. Is there a way to make sure these are good?
what was I thinking…dont think the lines have anything to do with it, unless you block them off…that is how I buzzed one.
Al
I talked to the OP at CMP. As I recall 2 of the motors were crate motors and 2 were fresh rebuilds. The 5th was the original high mileage motor that came with the car.
jeingold: A guy named Childress in Atl went thru a bunch of motors last year. As I recall the problem finally went away when he replaced his flywheel, transmission and driveshaft(?). I think that he decided that the likely cause of his problems was that something was unbalanced in his drivetrain and it was putting a lot of force on his crank.
If I remember correctly, all 5 motors showed oil pressure problems and two of those motors ended up having failed oil pumps. My perception is that oil pumps rarely fail, so if you had two fail then I’d guess there’s some debris in the motor. I know you’ve already been thinking of that since you sent your oil cooler out for cleaning. My point is that Childress’s problems might not be similar to yours.
My suggestion would be to find a low mileage junkyard motor, and oil cooler and put it in your car. You might consider putting your head on it tho. That will get you going, even if you’ll take it up the butt financially. Every time that gets you down just think about the >$10k or so that I’ve managed to spend in the last 6 months and I don’t have a working motor either.
Then as finances allow, you can return to your possessed block. It could go to someone different like Chuck Baader who seems to understand more about cleaning blocks then most. Your suspect oil cooler could be either cleaned again or thrown away.
You might never understand what the causes of your problems were, but the quickest way out from under the mysteries is to change everything.