Vat's Worst Case Scenario Thread

[Vat]

Please indulge me a little 'coping by analysis'.

So, after five laps at Lakeside this morning, the Jaffa, a rattly thing at the best of times, went a bit further and progressed to serious mechanical knocking and began surging, dying, etc.

After pulling in, the motor sounded like a small child armed with a hammer was trapped inside it. Oddly, oil levels were fine (it was serviced last week), fluids were fine, and a check of the dipstick and lift of the cam cover showed no metal in the oil or rogue parts rattling around in the cams. It was shut down fairly promptly after starting to play up, though.

Anyhoo, a ride home in a flatbed truck later, arrived at my usual servicing mechanic. Quick start of it, literally a three second listen and we're done. He's having a proper look tomorrow, but chief suspect is a big end bearing.

So...let's run with this and call this the worst case scenario.

From here, I figure there are two options:
- replace the motor
- repair the big end bearing (i.e. short motor replacement).

I'm thinking the best option is probably take the little fella to Automotive Plus, put a second hand Japanese motor in it with fresh water pump and gaskets, do the clutch and be done with. I've got a very rough ballpark figure (not holding Automotive Plus guys to it!) which whilst not pleasing is doable.

I'd be interested in other suggestions. As mentioned, I'm pre-empting the diagnosis here, but I figure if I start with the worst case scenario anything less than that becomes a bonus.

[timk]

Swapping the whole engine will be the easiest and least amount of down time/labour.

I thought the bottom end in my car was toast but after further investigation it turned out to be the harmonic balancer which had sheered 3 of the 4 bolts off!

Good luck!

Cheers

[speed freak]

Yea that doesnt sound good vat. Without hearing it, how you described it, it sounds like the big end bearing is toast. Bit odd though that the oil level was fine, plus it had fresh oil too. How many km on the engine?

[Vat]

Yea that doesnt sound good vat. Without hearing it, how you described it, it sounds like the big end bearing is toast. Bit odd though that the oil level was fine, plus it had fresh oil too. How many km on the engine?

194k.

Yeah, that threw me a bit too. I'd had the bulk of the seals done since January as she was leaking a fair bit at the front and the little fella had just about stopped using oil. Mechanic wasn't surprised, said he'd seen it before and shutting it down pretty much as soon it was apparent there was an issue would have helped. He pointed out (probably correctly) that it's usually the lack of oil that comes before the big end, not the other way around.

The Jaffa's always been rattly through 2500-3200 (that classic NB rattle) which I believed to be the extractors, but I'm just wondering if the previous owner ran it dry at some point, but I've put 11,000 km on it with no sense of impending doom. Indeed, at QR in September he was happy to spin out to 6500 (caution on my part in not going to 7000) with no issues.

Dunno - probably getting a little ahead of the game here...

[Magpie]

Drop it off to Autmotive Plus and ask for their thoughts.

Better to leave Lakeside on a flatbed with mehanical issues than a flatbed because of an impact issue.

[Vat]

Drop it off to Automotive Plus and ask for their thoughts.

Better to leave Lakeside on a flatbed with mechanical issues than a flatbed because of an impact issue.

Agreed.

Call back from the mechanic. Noise coming from cylinder 3, suspected little end bearing or gudgeon pin, which would have constituted a short motor tear down/rebuild.

[gslender]

Best of luck with the repairs... Always annoying when these types of unknown problems occur

[speed freak]

x2 Fingers crossed that its not as bad as first thought so you can get back out there and enjoy it.

[Vat]

Yeah, it's a replacement motor. Getting Automotive Plus to work up some options and numbers for me.

Anyone know a cheap towie that can get me from Sumner to Virginia? Might just call the RACE and tee it up through them.

[Magpie]

If I was home I could have put your 5 on my trailer, but unless you can wait till the end of the month?

An alternative is you could borrow the trailer, however you will need a car with a trailer brake controller installed and have a towbar capacity of at least 2t. I doubt my other half is willing to do the job, however she does know where Automotive Plus is

[Vat]

Thanks for the offer, but I'm pretty much sorted. We're overseas for two weeks come Sat night so it's too good an opportunity to get the little fella in and his heart transplant done. The Automotive Plus quote came in a bit under what I had in mind (even with some extras) so I'm okay with paying for towing.

[Vat]

Finally picked up the little fella this morning. Not having dríven a manual for three weeks + spending the last two weeks driving on the wrong side of the road and wrong side of the car + new clutch resulted in quite a number of stalls as I left Auto Plus.

Nice to have him back. Auto Plus did a lightened flywheel and heavy duty clutch kit so the motor spins up noticeably better and loses revs quickly when you lift, but not so much as to be a pain in the rear.

Interestingly, the motor cranks up and starts very quickly - the old one was was taking quite bit of effort by the battery to turn over first thing, suspect something was a bit sticky in there.

[zero00]

Glad to see he's feeling much better Craig - now a good feed of prunes and an egg nog and he'll just be fine!!

[mattyredlocks]

Good to hear the new motor is turning over nicely.

You'll have to give me a demo of the lightened flywheel spinning up at the next track day - I've never seen one in an otherwise unmodified car ...in person anyway.

[Vat]

Well, what else was I going to do after not driving the little fella for three weeks?