David Floyd

With the first DE of the year in a couple weeks, I wanted to start off the season with fresh rod bearings and that sure was a good idea,

#1 bearings, the rest had minimal wear

333pg333

Good catch David!! Think it's worth going in before each season really.

reno808

Once you see copper NOT A GOOD THING

Bri Bro

Dave, might want to send the picture to Chris White and see what he says. Strange it is #1, did you measure the bearing clearance when it first went together?

fortysixandtwo

Worth reading:
http://www.wilmink.nl/Clevite/Clevit..._tech_info.pdf

Crazy Eddie

Great info
Thanks
Ed
ps looking at those pictures .. it kinda looks like corrosion???

jmj951

Are there any warning signs before these become a real problem, i.e. causing any damage to the crank or rods? I'm at 142k and I do track it occasionally. I've never had oil pressure problems. The head gasket has gone out once at around 134k, but it was an 'all-at-once' failure with no warning, so I didn't drive the car on a leaking head gasket at all.

I've heard of these cars going 300k with no bottom-end maintenance, and then I also see things like this. I know I really should be replacing these soon based on what everyone is writing, but, this is also my daily driver that I need to have Mon-Fri for work, which doesn't leave much time for a big job like this (I've got a once-piece crossover and I've never had to completely remove the front crossmember).

Techno Duck

How many miles / track days on the bearings and what kind of oil are you using?

jmj951, there is no real indicator that a bearing is going to go. You might see lower than average oil pressure but the stock gauge is not all that accurate to really determine this. Once the bearing spins, the damage is done to the crank and in most cases the rod also. Best thing you can do is regular oil samples (you must do them regularly to establish a trend), if i remember right you would probably see higher levels of tin, lead and copper when the bearings are starting to wear out.

For comparison sake, these were the #2 bearings out of my 951 after 125k miles or so. I would estimate 20-30 track days from the two previous owners and myself. Mobil1 oil on all the records going back to the mid 90's up until i bought it and started using Redline. All the bearings looked essentially the same,

David Floyd

Looks ok on the little end

I did he said " that's pretty bad - failure was just around the corner" the man speaks the truth

Thank you for the link, very informative

Agreed

9 years old bearings, 80k miles, 3 track days last year, VR1 20w50

Had not noticed any oil pressure issues.

I was seeing more oil than I would like to see in the catch can last track day, thinking blow by contaminated the oil caused this ???? pulled the pistons going to install new rings, bores look great

Bri Bro

Take a look at Out-of-Round Bore and Excessive Crush. I would think that corrosion would effect more then one bearing.

David Floyd

Will do, but wouldn't out of round or excessive crush fail rather quickly ? these bearings have been run a long time

David Floyd

For comparison, they do show some trash embedded, oil/filter was changed often.

Bri Bro

They all are looking a little worn. I guess I would put in a new set and run them for awhile before doing a inspection to see how they are wearing. Good luck.