96 2.4 Internal question

[GreaseDog]

new here, and sort of new to the Twin Cams. i just pulled the engine out of my 96 GA. my little sister stacked the rod bearings on the #3 rod, which from what i understand isnt an uncommon problem with the 2.3/2.4 engines. although, i cant seem to figure out what causes it, and the research i have done hasnt come up with a cut and dry answer. anybody know what causes these problems?

[urweak]

oiling problems, from the oil pump, or she just ran the motor low on oil.

[GreaseDog]

wasnt low on oil, we checked right after it first started knocking.

got the bottom end torn apart just a few minutes ago, and noticed some rather unusual markings on the tops of the pistons. around the edges of the piston are clean on the #3cyl, i flipped the head over and the shape of the cylinder is clean, while the rest arent. upon further inspection, the piston was hitting the head, though just slightly. so my little project just got a whole lot more expensive.

[grandmafast]

when you do put the motor back together...

have a machine shop blueprint and balance it... and use nothing but clevitte bearings on the motor....

The #3 cyl tends to go w/o warning... once it starts knocking that cyl will tend to do whatever it wants in the damage department..

also when rebuilding the motor... get a Clevitte oil pump. When comparing it to the original one... the oil pump gear from the one I got was a bit more beefier then the OEM one.

[GreaseDog]

Originally posted by grandmafast
when you do put the motor back together...

have a machine shop blueprint and balance it... and use nothing but clevitte bearings on the motor....

The #3 cyl tends to go w/o warning... once it starts knocking that cyl will tend to do whatever it wants in the damage department..

also when rebuilding the motor... get a Clevitte oil pump. When comparing it to the original one... the oil pump gear from the one I got was a bit more beefier then the OEM one.

no need for the shop to balance and blueprint it, i do all of that work myself. quality parts are a given.

how does the oiling circuit work? i'm new to these 4 cylinders, i've been building V8s for 15 years, never tried to build half of one. normally, the #1/#2 rod bearings are the first to go with a V8, since it is farthest from the oil pump. why does the #3 rod go one the 2.3/2.4s? anything that can be done to fix it?

[grandmafast]

it's just one of the weird things about this motor... It's very finicky. I find some last forever while others just simply do not... I'm thinking it's due to the design of the balance shaft and oil pump assembly. The number 3 is completely covered by the balance shaft assembly while the other three not so much... Nobody I know has had problems using Clevitte parts, as they tend to be much better than OEM. Prevention through higher quality parts seems like to me.

[GreaseDog]

any way to eliminate the balance shaft assembly? i saw that it was chain driven, there has to be some parasitic drag due to the chain, so while potentially making a poor designed setup "better", freeing up a bit of power as well.

[urweak]

There is some info on this on www.quad4forums.com and on www.j-body.org you will have to do some digging to find it, but i know ive seen some info about it posted at some time about the balance shafts.

[DontPassTheFence]

Originally posted by grandmafast
when you do put the motor back together...

have a machine shop blueprint and balance it... and use nothing but clevitte bearings on the motor....

The #3 cyl tends to go w/o warning... once it starts knocking that cyl will tend to do whatever it wants in the damage department..

also when rebuilding the motor... get a Clevitte oil pump. When comparing it to the original one... the oil pump gear from the one I got was a bit more beefier then the OEM one.

Yes, my number 3 bearing spun with out warning. Hello new engine. :(

[96gaman18]

lol! whos #3 bearing hasnt pun that pushes that motor? mine did do i decided to go boost after that and redue everything. good luck with the rebuild though. they arent that hard to work on..it has taken me 3 days to get mine ready to put back in and it should be done this weekend!