RE: IML: 413 rod knock etc

["Steve B." <imperial59@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> What causes this failure?  Engine is comparatively young.  
> Had sat but found no evidence of rust or anything that would 
> hold the piston back when restarted.  Car appears to have 
> been driven sloppily due to some really amazing body damage, 
> like he drove under a drive-thru window.  PO now in jail on 
> 3-strikes law, so who knows what the heck he did with it, but 
> looks like a good, original car till he got to it and banged 
> it up.  Recent brakes/tires indicate someone was taking care 
> of it, and fluids all seemed good, with no particulate and 
> relatively clean from a somewhat recent change (as opposed to 
> going 15k between changes and just pouring more in the top of 
> the engine when low.
>

Three things I can think of that would cause this:
#1  Oiling system failure.  If this were the case you would know it from
looking at the bearings.  

#2  Abuse.  Intentional or unintentional.  Maybe the throttle stuck and
caused a severe over-rev.  Maybe the prior owner was drag racing it. 

#3  Defective bolt.   That bolt might have been weak from the get-go and
only failed when a new owner drove it a little harder than the old owner
did.

I hope others can think of more.   You only mention replacing the four
failed bearings.  You need to replace every bearing on that crankshaft and
it wouldn't be a bad idea to check out the cam bearing either (even though I
probably wouldn't).  I would replace all the rod bolts with correct strength
bolts, new bearings and plastigauge to make sure they were within tolerance.
Bearing are cheap and easy to replace while the engine is out.  Whatever
happened to make that bolt fail could have damaged other parts that aren't
evident to you yet.  

                   My .02

                   Steve B.

-- 

Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.10.1/64 - Release Date: 8/4/2005
 



-----------------  http://www.imperialclub.com  -----------------
This message was sent to you by the Imperial Mailing List. Please 
reply to mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and your response will be 
shared with everyone. Private messages (and attachments) for the
Administrators should be sent to webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To UN-SUBSCRIBE, go to http://imperialclub.com/unsubscribe.htm