The Cal-look Lounge

Had my 2276 on a dyno this morning, everything ok for around 2 hours running time going through the mapping process. After hitting 6k and returning to idle it stopped solid.  Temps and pressure were seemingly good.
Now engine has cooled right down it's turning over again by hand. Any suggestions as to what might have caused this?

Check youre oil filter for particals
Do a leak test and check oilpress

Was the power ok
Or did it die slowly ?

Good luck

Power was increasing,  mapping 250-300rpm increases at a time. It was making 140hp at hubs @6k and 140lbs torque from just over 2k to 5.5k. Dropped off then but mapping wasn't complete. Sounded great at 6k then returned to idle for a second or two then cut out and was stuck solid. No noises or sign of trouble, temp and pressure were good.
Will need to find out whats in the filter, need to ask my guy on monday what he finds

One positive is seizing with no load and decreasing rpm so luckily limiting damage, if it's solid it's likely seized a main bearing, as you say oil pressure was good, I'd go with no 1 main seizing, maybe too tight on end float ? I ike around .006" or .008" on all out race motors, the lower limit of .004 can be too tight if things get very hot, then add in some heat sink >:(, dyno work can be tougher than some owners use of their motors, yours had been running for a good bit and was likely fully expanded in width and length, also oil pressure would be dropping as you backed down the rpm, good luck with it anyway.

Yes we were lucky it went at idle speed not 6k. The fact it now turns over as it has cooled down leads me to think it was tight endfloat and not a spun bearing?  I don't know much about these engines but that sounds more plausible to me?

Hi baz, a lucky and welcome break ;) so Yes, correct as I suggested, heat sink grew the case length ways, probably your end float was factory minimum at .004" you need to add a couple of thou to the end float, it will show on the shims when you pull the fly wheel, luckily you have good crush on the bearing so it never moved. I would be concerned tho if end float was around .006/007" and all the shims look good with no witness marks or bluing, I would want to pull the heads in that case and eyeball the bores and Pistons as a starter.  Let us know please.

Hopefully have the flywheel pulled next week and find this is the case.

What's the norm on metallic residue in the filter?  On a new engine what should you expect to find?

Just trying to weigh up if its worth stripping the engine completely against just finding tight endfloat and going on dyno again once its been loosened up a little.

I've waited a year to hear this engine run, 3 years since i started buying parts, I don't mind having it stripped if its best option as another few weeks wait won't hurt as bad as another seizure at the dyno and possibly expensive damage and a third run on the dyno after it's fixed

I had my 1835 seize under load in 2nd gear at about 5k locking the rear wheels solid (fun). It didn't spin over again ever by socket, no way by hand! Rear main bearing had spun, end float too tight. Engine was built by a well known and good rep builder I won't name and had about 300 miles on when it let go. Needless to say, I'll not be bothering with them again for anything.

Count yourself lucky it happened at idle and is now free'd off. Next step.... Re-shim it, hope for the best?

Good dyno results by the way. Hope it's not nobbled!  :'( Sounds like it could be sorted without major pain.

Baz, I doubt there will be any debris made it to the filter, it only has the rear thrust flange working on the shims, remember it had no load or revs on it and stopped real quickly, if it looks clean and proves out on inspection to be the end float, give it a flush and filter change and go again, I had a ram air cooled motor that would never re start to go on home the trailer after racing, I left it an hour and away it went, all was fine after increasing end float.

Fingers crossed this is the case, the more i think about it the more it seems like it. Thanks for the help,  I'll report back next week with what we find.

Hi iryano,I wouldn't be blaming the builder, not his fault, he likely used handbook clearances, race motors are picky, anything can happen, all it takes is a temperature spike or odd fuelling due to altitude or barometric pressure changes, they are at or beyond they're design limits, thousands of race motors run the lower end float settings problem free, I know builders that set them up at that with no problems, and berate myself for running sloppy end float, it does cause timing scatter for sure, unless it's crank trigger wheel timed of course, my Wassers are back at .005" end float, they don't expand like Aircooled, but what if the coolant pump failed?

If it was my engine I would tear it back down to check for damage , if nothing is wrong you could have it back together in a few hours. I would recheck your piston to wall clearance along with end thrust as already mentioned. Thank goodness that whatever it was did not lock up under a hard pull on the dyno. Mike McCarthy

Just my opinion, but if it tightened up due to not enough end play it will probably have marked the bearing as it prevents oil flowing through the bearing correctly, you need to split case and check the bearings for any tight spots, if not it will come back to haunt you.
Does it have a mag or aluminium case? if ally then steel or ally pulley? I have seen them lock up with ally case and ally pulley where it is to tight on snout of case

cheers Richie

Its alu case and alu pulley but there's a steel hub between the two parts, its a vwspeedshop crank trigger wheel and pulley.
I've spoken to the builder about sending it back to him for a tear down and rebuild, hopefully get it to him next week.

I hear ya, let's just say I've heard similar stories from the same builder. It was a mild 1835, mag case, unworked big valve heads and an engle 120. Hardly a fire breathing pedigree racing mill operating on the verge of hydraulic lock, it would have been lucky to pull 80hp imo. Maybe the guy dropped his shims on the floor and put them all back in the wrong compartments! Maybe his DTI got dropped at the same time, and the numbers on his vernier are all worn off from over-use.  :P

That should rule out that then, hopefully its just minor and quick clean up and maybe polish crank and good to go again :)

Hope so Ritchie,  thinking I will strip it down and then take it up to the builder in kit form, this will eliminate any temptation to just re-shim the endfloat and send it back ;)

Have you checked endfloat at all now while its together? There are a few other reasons why it could lock up like that 

No I just left the car with the guy working on it (not the engine builder) he said he'd try have a look at it tomorrow, he is busy though next week. I will be passing his way tomorrow and I hope to get a few hours where I can help get it out of the car, once out we'll measure endfloat before taking anything apart.

What other things should we look out for?

End play 1st, might be that simple, if not Oil hole alignment & correct bearing chamfer would be next 2 things, not knowing who built it means I have no idea on there knowledge etc


cheers Richie

So just watched the motor get stripped down, number 2 rod had stuck to the crank due to oil starvation. Bearings had not been modified to line up the oil feeds. Rookie error from a 'pro' builder! Rod bearings were all a sloppy fit and loose in the rods.
Crank has no evidence of balancing which was a surprise.

Crank needs regrind, new bearings and should be good to go again.

(http://i.imgur.com/up3NHv5.jpg)

(http://i.imgur.com/FSR4CrT.jpg)

(http://i.imgur.com/q7tJeby.jpg)

(http://i.imgur.com/W3MpsNr.jpg)

What's your plan, get it built again by someone else?

Lee

I have been thinking about doing it myself but I really would like it fixed asap and it would take me months to get it done, so judgie is gonna take care of it this time.


Any ideas on whats going on with the loose rod bearings?  Tried a few other bearings in the rod and they all fitted fine.

Check the crank is straight. I had a low rpm (idle) lock-up once and the crank was bent as a result.
Worth checking while it's apart...

Do the rod bearings sit below the centre line of the rod cap? If you've got that it gap there the oil will just pour out and prob not create the oil film the bearing and crank would "float" on. In my mind...?
Just seems odd?

Getting someone to check it over would be a good move as you say.
Best of luck!

Hadn't considered that, hope it's good  :-\

I don't think so, didn't notice a gap when we reassembled the rod and bearing off the crank

Good stuff. Good you have stayed positive and once it's all good you will love it

Cheers dude,  tbh hearing it run on saturday has given my enthusiasm a boost,  summer is coming and it will be ready  ;D

That loose rod bearing is what happens when they get hot.
Provided the rods measure up OK, a new bearing will have the 'nip' required.

Have them crack tested and resized, if they measure poorly.

Any decent machinist can straighten a crankshaft BEFORE, it is reground,
so it should be an easy fix if it has crack tested OK, but is bent.

You would be surprised how little oil volume a bearing needs,
but if the sump has run dry, or the pump sucked air(like a bathtub draining)
due to sustained rpm, it will kill bearings instantly.

But yes, a nice detail would be the oil holes not overlapping!

Make sure your sump capacity and oil level are enough!

Another point about engine lock up is,
you should know the actual measurements of ALL the assembled bearing clearances,
not just the end float.

Some times the crank journals may have to be ground, to get the exact clearance required
due the tolerance stack up, of both case (and rods for that matter), and also the bearings used.

JMHO ,  It is easy to speculate on the causes and at this point it really does not matter. You would be surprised how many times I have seen engines be built where they took for granted that because they had a standard crank, case and rods that their bearing clearances would be good to go with standard bearings . Too low of oil pressure for the rpm's turned, wrong viscosity or not enough capacity so the engine runs out of oil. My suggestion would be to find a machinist locally who you can pay to measure the case, crank, and rods , repair or replace everything that got damaged . I would have him check the bearing clearances for the viscosity of the oil you intend to run and then reassemble the engine yourself . I like a 4 quart sump and I run more oil pressure than others , I'd rather give up a few HP and have my bearings look like new when I pull them out at the end of a race season. Mike McCarthy

I originally planned to build the motor myself but chickened out as I got a bit overwhelmed by it all and decided to get a pro builder to take care of it. I expected the builder to take care of every detail and I was happy to pay for attention to detail, I even told him this the day I dropped all the parts to him. He wasn't my first choice but someone who was recommended to me. I reckon my first choice would have done all the blueprinting I was expecting so I should have stuck to that plan.

Perhaps I should take heed of the advice above and assemble it myself this time, what I'll have to pay someone else to build it would buy me the tools I'd need. I'll sleep on it and see how I feel about it tomorrow.

Thanks everybody for your help and advice

DIY is OK to a point, untill it comes to trouble shooting when an experienced eye can't be beat, now the shits hit the fan, it all needs careful scrutiny, There needs to be crush on the big end bearing shells, Andy also noticed, they should just be very slightly proud of the shoulder, so somethings way off in your pic, the shells in both halfs are below the rod shoulders and look as if they would just fall out, as new they should almost 'snap' into place, I've seen it on well hammered race motors were they were literally hammered thinner, and loose in the assembled con rod eye but showed no copper, you say oil pressure was constant, it may have indicated thus at the gauge, but I suspect volume and pressure to that no2 has hammered it, some bearing types these days seem to skip the copper layer and there seems no sign of it in the pics, cost cutting?? Nothing can be taken at face value anymore, even snide bearings could be a possibility, I'm concerned also the backs of the bearings look high mileage? Maybe it's just photo quality poor with resizing or summat.  :-\

well thought i would post as i'm the one now being trusted to rebuild this. was gutting to watch it lock up on the dyno.
had a lot of oil pressure which surprised me even if it is all new , was showing 80+psi @2500rpm warm with a 20/50 mineral oil, the oil holes in the bearings not lining up would account for the high pressure but we all know pressure and flow are very different.
tried some new ks bearings in the rods and they snap into place like you would expect. need to check the part numbers on the bearings we removed to find out what they are.
crank is off with the machine shop to be checked and ground. I have also asked him to check the journal width and fillet radius.
then its give it all a dam good clean as there is a lot of bearing materiel floating about.
end float was 007" so about where i would expect
i think the bearings are silverline ones but going to try and source some steel backed ones for the rebuild.

I was gonna call you today mate to see if anything was happening, saved me the trouble now having read that :)

Thought those silverlines were steel backed?

It has already been suggested to me in a pm that the rod bearings may be chevy size, I'm a little confused about this as I'd have thought if they were too small for the journal then the rods would have seemed very tight on assembly? 

If you need NOS steel backed mains, depending on crank size and case size, you might call Terry at Griffin Motorwerke. 510-524-7447

Thanks.

Baz, put your mechanical aptitude cap on and think about what this is telling you.

Hmmm I'd probably tap the gauge a couple of times with my finger tips to see if it changed, if that didn't fix it then scratch my head for a bit whilst wearing a puzzled expression on my face. Oil too thick?  Blockage somewhere in the case?

That's pretty much the extent of my mechanical aptitude ;)

re; the oil pressure. Have just finished a rally car build with a hot 1600 in it which has similar oil pressure but has had a few mods done to increase the low rpm pressure which will also increase high rpm pressure. As i did not build this engine I did not know if any internal mods had been done to the oil system.
now the engine is apart we can see why the oil pressure was so high.

The guy who built it when questioned on the bearing feed to oil gallery overlap said "thats normal and never had a problem before" 

Both.
The blockage is the entrance to the bearings.  When the entrance is tight, it causes the oil to pile up at the entrance resulting in high oil pressure.  IOW, oil is not getting into the bearings.  That is what the high oil pressure reading is telling you.
A lot of guys say the engine has good oil pressure when the reading is high.  I say the opposite.  High pressure is bad.
If you switch to lower viscosity oil, it will be better able to enter the bearings.  Causing less back pressure and more flow through the bearings.
That is why low oil pressure is GOOD!

Makes sense to me, we'll try a lighter oil next time and judgie is gonna make sure I get best possible flow path to the bearings too.

Thanks

Here is a general bearing clearance vs oil viscosity chart , hope it helps , Mike

Here are some recommended rod bearing oil clearances for various oil viscosities:

.0015 to .0018 for 5W-20 or 20W

.002 to .0024 for 5W-30 or 30W

.0025 to .0029 for 10W-40 or 40W

.0030 to .004 for 20W-50 or 50W

.0041 to .005 for 10W-60 or 60W

For main bearings:

.0015 to .002 for 5W-20 or 20W

.002 to .0025 for 5W-30 or 30W

.0026 to .003 for 10W-40 or 40W

.0031 to .0041 for 20W-50 or 50W

.0042 to .0052 for 10W-60 or 60W

Clearance changes with journal size.

Can anyone help identify a rod bearing from this part number?
0111 COC 13452 STD

0111coc 1345z std

Must have your glasses on this morning Rob?   :P.

Cheers

I've been reading through this thread and I just had to get out of the bed and compare a Chevy bearing to a VW journal.

There is no "snaps into place" with this combination.
(https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1708/25630736171_954d58a43f_z.jpg)

(https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1443/25425091000_790a2cf234_z.jpg)

It's unbelievable that someone could fit that thing and think it looks ok. I reckon my bearings must be vw and have just been damaged through oil starvation.

Do you know what brand those bearings are?  Any part number on the back?

I've been searching everywhere for info on the number posted above and cannot find anything. I think they are silverline brand, can't be 100% though as its over a year since i bought them.

They are Clevite bearings, CB-610P (STD) on the underside of the bearing.

I couldn't find the part number you posted either.  Did you buy the bearings?  Your engine builder provide?

I agree, they don't even remotely lock in place.  It would be a giant PITA to keep all that shit together to install the rods.

I'm pretty sure I bought them, but like I said it's been over a year and I can't be 100% sure.

There is something Rob mentioned when we were stripping the engine, he mentioned it looked like the bearings had picked up mid way and not at the split where he said they normally do. It's possible they were stretched on install to better fit the rods, hence being tight at 90 degrees to the split.

Hopefully the numbers will say for sure either way

I think its very unlikely these are not "VW" bearings.  It should be slightly larger than the rod cap like others have mention, then "crush" when the rod is bolted together.

I would lay the bearing on its side and trace it onto a piece of paper and then measure the width.  Does the arc length match that of a stock bearing?  If it doesn't, the width better have increased, other wise where did all that material go?  into the oil...maybe, but unlikely.

I left all the parts with Rob,  I'll ask him to send me the scrap bearings and measure them like you say.

There was a lot of bearing material in the oil.

Cheers

 They look like Porsche 53mm shells in both dia' and width. Still fails the common sence test.. Perhaps the Porsche name would fix the cock up automatically.

Part number I got off VW journal Silverline is 0111COC2414B STD without my glasses on ;) so not sure what those are

cheers Richie

Thanks Ritchie.

I can concentrate soley on silverline part number searches now as the numbers are so close that mine have to be silverline.

So is it likely that these are not vw journal if the numbers don't match? 

That could be a date code towards the end

Any progress on the rebuild?
Lee

Still waiting on a crank grind which is holding up proceedings right now. Hopefully done soon so Rob can get on with it.

Feel a bit sick at needing a quality crank messed with already :(

Things are finally moving on getting this fixed, collected the engine yesterday and will start cleaning everything up over the weekend.

I checked the offending rod bearing against a new one, after bending the edges outwards it matches almost perfect so that tells me the bearing is vw journal.
Looking closer at the shell it looks like it started breaking down pretty badly, you can see the pitting in the pic.

(http://i.imgur.com/Bnj5TxF.jpg)

Here's what my sump plate looks like, lots of metal!

(http://i.imgur.com/kLczd3I.jpg)

Looking at the crankcase bearing saddles I can see just over a third of my oil feed openings were intersecting with the grooves in the main bearings.

Notice the "shape" of the scarred area...the journal wasn't flat...and just an FYI... When I was grinding cranks at Bergs, there was a "racer clearance" that all of the race cranks got... .002 under the low was what Gene wanted...

Exactly! today everybody want to build on max spec because they thibnk it is better. Its not, and definitely not in a 45 year old engine. A new Yamaha would be different.

T

I'm surprised at a dpr crank not being ground correctly but i can see the bearing shows the journal wasn't flat across the full surface. This would have made a funny shaped plastigauge strip right?  Also mic'ing the journal would have showed it as larger than the others right?

I'll be sure to measure the new crank journals on 3 points across the journals to make sure I don't get the same problem again.

We are drifting onto a crank problem now, It's so unlikely it can be discounted, the facts are the bearings were shite from day one, on top they were not blue printed for race engine use, there is no copper backing, a sure sign of rubbish bearings, we all need to stop looking for supplier price and show cheapskate customers the door, it's so bad now, bearings are the last thing I change, rod bearing possibly, my own race motors have o/e mains with many many hours on them, mains just don't wear with a decent oil filter system, used o/e German is still superior to the available rubbish suppliers WANT TO SELL YOU, it's up to us to stop the rot.

What are the new mahle/clevite rod bearings like?

Mahle BE are good, I hear clevite are but have to say I've not used them, Mahle mains on the other hand lack the steel backing for no 2, you can use no3 full bearing at no 2 instead, or you could use a clevite steel no 2 and Mahle remainder,  it's been thus some years now. I would guess your crank journal picked up the bearing material first in the centre area, this then machined out the odd dish look to the bearing.

I Blame the scotch whisky ::), you can't of cource get the full bearing over the crank....

So I'm trying to get the best bearings I can this time round. I've located some old stock mexican mahle cam bearings which I believe should be good quality? Seller says they are heavy tri metal. Any opinions on these?

Also located a set of nos vw in the blue vw box main bearings, they have discoloured over the years to a dark grey  and I'm wondering if they are still good to use?  If they are good to go are they gonna be that much better than the silverline mains?  They ain't cheap but I have no problem paying for quality if it's justified. If however the silverline mains are as good then I'd rather save the unnecessary expense

I got silverline mains and cam bearings in the nitrous 67 and no problem there :), have put them in lots of motors[ and the rod bearings] and never had a problem, I wonder if there is just a bad batch of rod bearings. The only problem I have seen is with real cheap chinese rods where the tang cut out on rods was to small for the rod bearing to fit nice, took a little work to get to fit and a better quality rod would have been cheaper after the time spent ::)

Are you using a new crank now? or a ground one? I have some oversize VW journal rod bearings made by Vandervell in the 70s which are really good but no standard sizes.

Are you using dual thrust cam bearings? if so are those Mexican bearing just single thrust?

cheers Richie

Hi Richie,  yes the cam bearings are single thrust but he has a few sets and they are reasonably priced so was thinking 2 sets will get me what I need? 

Since my dyno fiasco I've spent hours searching for info on silverline bearings, there isn't a whole lot of negative feedback on them but the bad stuff I've read did apply only to rod bearings being occasionaly tight and cam bearings being somewhat soft.

I bought a new dpr crank as waiting for a regrind was taking an age so I'm back at standard journals again. With the availability of os bearings I'd have been better off holding out for my regrind  :P

I have a set of silverline mains torqued up in my case I'm gonna measure up today, but the ocd part of me wants those blue box vw bearings now that I've spotted them and they've spoken to me ;)

I had a bad set of Silverline main bearings, but that was back in 2007

Scored a few sets of nos blue boxed rod bearings and bought those mexican cam bearings I mentioned earlier. Still undecided on the blue box mains, found some more for sale that look almost like new, nice and shiney and not dark grey like the first ones I found.

Some nos ks rod bearings compared to current best available clevite 77.

Ks on left

(http://i.imgur.com/EgLPdTg.jpg)


Ks on right

(http://i.imgur.com/BrjW94w.jpg)

Thought i would post my latest findings just to put this topic to bed. I fitted 3 different sets of nos ks bearings to my rods and measured with a dial bore gauge. All 3 sets measure out at .02 - .03mm bigger than the silverlines that were in my engine. Not having the crank to hand yet so can't measure the journals and calibrate my mics to it but looks for certain i had tight bearings. If my mics are calibrated spot on I'm getting 55.04 to 55.05 on the ks bearings and 55.02 on the silverlines

If the crank was/is on max measure, then the Silverline set up would be not enough. If the crank was 2-3/100 under like most new Chinese cranks it should be just fine, unless you want to rev 7000+ rpm. Then i like a little more tolerance too.

T

Its a dpr crank which rob took a quick measuremant from the day we stripped the engine, it came out bang on 55mm with his mic.
I've a new dpr now which I'll need to measure with my mic so everything is measured with the same tools, but the supplier has told me they usually always spec out on the high side of the tolerance.