On the couch

#1

Had knee surgery this morning. Got my worn out cartilage repaired again so I can run and ride (cycling) again. Same thing I had done in '02. I told the doc that this time I wouldn’t overdo it and burn thru his fine work. So I’m laying on the couch with my knee propped up catching up on Brit Touring Car recordings.

Might not have to call it a day off from work tho. We’ve an eCommerce initiative going at work and there’s a number of high anxiety types involved. It was looking like they were just going to have to cool their jets because they wanted firewall config mods made and the WAN Admin is home watching BTCC.

But I made the sacrifice and multi-tasked firewall and touring car.

Sure would be nice if the new rules came out today so I had something to do this afternoon.

Dumped my oil load last night after only 3hrs on it. Did an event with xW40 to see what the oil pressure would be. Was 48-50psi @ 6k rpm, which is kinda low given that my oil temps were quite low. Not to mention that Brad Penn xW40 is a really thick 40 weight. The Blackstone report came back on my last sample yesterday. There was an unsettling amount of lead in the oil. That means bearings. That’s kinda unhappy. The engine only has 24hrs on it, so we’ll have to see if it’s just some kind of break in issue. Is hard to understand how coated bearings could lose lead when breaking in tho.

I have a Metric Mechanic baffled oil pan and an I-J crankscraper. OP warning lights and OP data clearly indicate that this motor has never starved for oil. So there’s something else going on.

If the oil pressure starts dropping at events next year, replacing the bearings won’t be a big deal. But I worry that there might be some underlying problem that could be causing excessive wear on the bearings. Like what if the crank isn’t quite straight?

So after dumping my oil last night and taking a sample, I went to my vast store of oil to get 5qts of Brad Pennn 20W50, only to find that I didn’t have enough. Might have been smarter to check to see if I had enough oil, BEFORE draining out all of my oil. Sheeze.

#2

Just pulled my motor down to freshen after 3 track days, 9 races, etc. and found the bearings perfect. Cam/lifters likewise. Using the IJ scraper and PP pan and I do see OP fluctuations when hitting the brakes for a turn (goes to damn near 0 and comes right back). I really would be surprised if the problem were your bearings. There is, however, one bearing that no one thinks of…the OP drive shaft bearing, that are not coated. That could be the source of the excess lead. Chuck

#3

cwbaader wrote:

Freshening your motor after 3 track days. You’re a madman .

Re. Intermediate shaft bearing. Now that’s a good thought, I’d not considered that bearing.

It’s premature to worry about the engine. At this point the oil samples are simply “interesting”. Frankly, I’ve been thru so much with engines that nothing excites me anymore. I’ll run the engine until it’s at death’s door and then I’ll pull it out, get it unscrewed and put it back in. No big deal.

#4

Three track days and NINE races, qualifying, etc. Sue and I both had knee surgery this year. Hope you do better than she did…she was a real pussy, as I was at work the next day. CB

#5

Ranger wrote:

[quote]Is hard to understand how coated bearings could lose lead when breaking in tho.[/quote] I wonder if this could be wear at the #6 thrust bearing. When pulling the bearings out of my 32 hour engine, they all looked brand spanking new with the exception of the thrust bearing. I’m pulling apart your old engine (soon to be my new engine) tonight and I’ll let you know what those bearings look like.

#6

cwbaader wrote:

What did you #6 main look like? Any wear on the thrust bearing?

#7

Slight wear on all bearings but not through the coating. No measurable difference (down to .0001") on the bearing thickness. Thrust showed no unusual wear.

You can’t get lead through the coating…must come from somewhere else. Chuck

#8

FishMan wrote:

[quote]Ranger wrote:

IIRC, and w/ 9 separate stories that’s no sure thing, the block you have is the one I hosed up by creating a perfect storm oiling system.

That engine didn’t have a crankscraper because the scraper was in the engine that was at Chuck’s house getting rebuilt. I figured doing a couple events w/o a scraper would be no big deal… some guys are quick to point out that they’ve never used a scraper.

But what happened is crazy and will probably never be understood. My theory is that the piston in my Accusump was getting stuck. After a couple hard turns the Accusump would be largely empty because of the oil pump sucking air in turns. After that occured I wouldn’t be able to get OP back until I let the car sit for a while (8-10min). That is to say, I could idle the car for 30secs, even rev it up to 2k a couple times, and OP wouldn’t come back. I did this at least a half dozen times because it was just too wierd to be believed.

An Accusump has a piston separating pressurized air and oil. So if there is 10psi of air, your OP can never be below 10psi. But if the piston was stuck, oil could go into the Accusump w/o pushing on the piston. So I was simply looking at an issue of the oil pump requiring time to fill the Accusump before the engine see OP.

This did not happen when I had the scraper. I think I created the problem when I ran the Accusump without the scraper, and in so doing, but much greater demands on it.

By observing all my guages and warning lights I used to be able to see the pump suck air, galley OP briefly drop a little, then sump providing oil and galley OP go back up. Then the pump would find oil and sump would get recharged. With 3 OP gauges and 2 OP switches I could see it all.

Anyways, the bearings on that block are sure to be toast because of the oil starvation. But it’s not like it was pushed hard during starvation. When my oil lights flashed I was in neutral instantly. The real starvation periods were me idling the car trying to figure out how the hell my oil pump could be turning in a pan full of oil but the engine had no OP.

#9

Is hard to understand how coated bearings could lose lead when breaking in tho.

[color=#0000FF]Can’t…must get through the coating first.[/color]

I wonder if this could be wear at the #6 thrust bearing. When pulling the bearings out of my 32 hour engine, they all looked brand spanking new with the exception of the thrust bearing. I’m pulling apart your old engine (soon to be my new engine) tonight and I’ll let you know what those bearings look like.

[color=#0000FF]Coating is also applied to the face of the thrust bearing. Unless there was excessive end play on the crank, that scenario shouldn’t work either. Chuck[/color]

#10

Ranger wrote:

Yep, bearings were toast in that engine… Crank seems to be in pretty good shape. Several of the cylinders had frozen rings, but cylinders are in great shape. Measuring top, middle, and bottom in two directions, all cylinders are within in .0005 in of spec. Even though I have new .020 in over pistons, part of me wants to just hone and re-use stock pistons with new rings. Is there a downside?

1/2 or full groove main bearings, which is better for our application?

#11

FishMan wrote:

[quote]Ranger wrote:

Yep, bearings were toast in that engine… Crank seems to be in pretty good shape. Several of the cylinders had frozen rings, but cylinders are in great shape. Measuring top, middle, and bottom in two directions, all cylinders are within in .0005 in of spec. Even though I have new .020 in over pistons, part of me wants to just hone and re-use stock pistons with new rings. Is there a downside?

1/2 or full groove main bearings, which is better for our application?[/quote]
What’s a frozen ring and what causes it?

I’m torn on the issue of larger pistons. I spent a bunch of money on them twice and if they made any difference in hp, neither me nor the dyno can detect it.

Re. bearing grooves. The crank apparently only gets oil thru 180deg of rotation so I think that the groove only needs to be in 1/2. I’ve talked to folks that tried to explain this to me but I’d have to say that I don’t really understand it. Maybe with a block, bearings, crank and bearing caps in front of me it could be explained such that I understood.

I wish I understood lubrication better. Bearing design and lubrication are specialty areas that no one outside really understands all that well. What few engineering electives I had were in heat xfer and materials, I don’t know spit about bearings and lubrication.

And the infantry was no place to learn.

Subject change. After hobbling around the house all weekend my mobility is slowly improving. Tomorrow I go in for some kind of leg brace to restrict range of motion. I can’t put pressure on the problem area (a 1cm hole) until it’s had a chance to grow some new cartilage.

#12

Ranger wrote:

[quote]What’s a frozen ring and what causes it?
[/quote]

I should have said stuck rings. The engine was pretty sludged up. That combined with the heat resultant from no oil pressure must have caused clearance issues in the ring grooves. One of the pistons also had a broken oil control ring.

Good luck with that knee!

#13

One of the last things I tried to do in an effort to change the behavior of the mystery of the incredible disappearing oil, was to add a 2nd quart of oil. That is to say, 2 qts high. That might have thrown oil every which way, because it fouled the plugs. That might have been the cause of the sludge in the rings.