My S2 coupe

[TimE-J]

GOOD NEWS!!!

Managed to get a pipe made at a local hydraulic place and bridged the cooler. After it started there was a stuck tappet but after running on a high idle for 15-20 mins it cleared. There's no real sign of any damage with oil temps of 90-95c I was seeing about 2.1 bar and there are no nasty noises through out the rev range.

Hopefully I've been lucky so now just to get the car up to my unit so I can start the strip down.

Also got some steering arm bushes off Bambridge to add to the list parts to be changed!

[andyg plym]

nice one brother! Gotta keep these red coups on the road

[Greg_S]

Be very careful, this is what I thought on mine. 150 miles later the big ends let go on one of the rods and bent the rod and knackered up the crank

[AndyP]

GOOD NEWS!!!

Managed to get a pipe made at a local hydraulic place and bridged the cooler. After it started there was a stuck tappet but after running on a high idle for 15-20 mins it cleared. There's no real sign of any damage with oil temps of 90-95c I was seeing about 2.1 bar and there are no nasty noises through out the rev range.

Hopefully I've been lucky so now just to get the car up to my unit so I can start the strip down.

Also got some steering arm bushes off Bambridge to add to the list parts to be changed!

Sorry to p*ss on your chips, but I agree with Greg. Unless the bearings are really knackered they probabley won't make a noise, what could have happened is they could have got 'scuffed' and now, the more you run it the more it will damage the bearing up to the point where it over heats and welds itself to the crank, taking the rod and crank with it

I'd pull the sump off, you can do this with the engine in, and have a look at the bearings. A pain I know, but it could save you a much bigger bill 2 weeks down the line.

[Greg_S]

Yeah definitely recommend you do that, benefit of hindsight I would have done that to mine

[Rusty]

Or buy a spare engine and bench build it, ready for the big day :mischeif:

[TimE-J]

Thanks for the heads up, like I said the car is coming off the road for a few months so I'll just add that job to the list.

Is it worth checking main and big ends, or is that a bit of a daft question?

Also worst case scenario and there is wear/score marks on the shells and on the crank, how salvageable normally are the cranks?

Any info would be much appreciated.

Also just as a note, when the cooler blew and when the engine was switched off it was still showing over half a bar of pressure.

[TimE-J]

Got the s2 to my unit today after work so just thought id add a photo of it in its new home for the next few months.

[AndyP]

Thanks for the heads up, like I said the car is coming off the road for a few months so I'll just add that job to the list.

Is it worth checking main and big ends, or is that a bit of a daft question?

Also worst case scenario and there is wear/score marks on the shells and on the crank, how salvageable normally are the cranks?

Any info would be much appreciated.

Also just as a note, when the cooler blew and when the engine was switched off it was still showing over half a bar of pressure.

If it was still showing pressure you might have got away with it. It's it's only lightly marked you could just get it polished, if it's too deep to polish out it's a re-grind and a set of oversize shells. It would have to be really bad to scrap the crank.

[TimE-J]

Ok great thanks for the info, I dont mean to sound like I dont have a clue but I dont have much experience in cranks, mechanic by trade but we only seem to strip and rebuild heads or change engines.

It was showing alittle over 0.5 bar and it didnt leave any oil on the road only in the undertray and then a puddle when the car came to a stop!

Is it worth checking the big end shells aswel? I know the oil has to go through the main ends first.

[andy10v]

Is it worth checking the big end shells aswel? I know the oil has to go through the main ends first.

If you are checking the mains it is very little extra effort to check the big ends.

No. 3 big end is normally the first to go in an oil loss event according to Phil Payne in an engine failure thread on here, so probably the one to check first. It was the most destroyed in a failed engine I had.

You can get platigauge if you want to check whilst you are in there.

[TimE-J]

Work began this week started off with stripping bits of the engine bay down just to have a good look round and see what needs replacing.



Last night and today I carried on stripping bits off like the inlet manifold and rad off to give the engine bay and engine a proper clean so pushed the s2 out of the unit and got the jetwash out with some industrial cleaner

Only got a few pictures after the car was pushed back in.




Now that I've cleaned the engine area down and got rid of most of the hydraulic oil that seemed to be EVERYWHERE, the suspension strip down can begin.
Plans for tomorrow are to jack the car up on stands and start to remove the suspension so that while i'm waiting for cash to build up for the parts I can strip and clean subframes and so on ready for the bushes and mounts.

I'll try and take a better camera with me tomorrow instead of using my crappy Iphone.

[TimE-J]

Didn't end up doing as much as I had hoped today due to chasing a water leak on a mk4 golf.
Managed to get the rest of the manifold off and dried and cleaned some more of the engine bay, got it jacked up then ended up cleaning the wheels as they've been sat with brake dust on them for awhile now.

Also bought a free standing 10 ton press so I've had to delay the parts alittle longer.

Anyway some more pics of todays progress.

[TimE-J]

Managed to get abit more done today, but now I'm going to need some advice from yourselves about the main shell bearings.

after dropping the subframe and sump I removed the main bearing caps and gave them a quick clean along with the crank and took some pictures so that I can get your opinion on the possible damage. Unfortunately I only managed to get 5 of the 5 caps off tonight as the 6th as far as I can tell requires the removal of the crank oil seal plate.

Cap 1.

Crank 1.


Cap 2.

Crank 2.


Cap 3.

Crank 3.


Cap 4.

Crank 4.


Cap 5.

Crank 5.


As you can probably see from the photos that there is a very small score like stripe on cap 4 and a slightly more noticeable score mark on cap 5.

These look more like marks made from a small piece of swarf that has been in the oil and not from lack of oil damage.
Also I can't see any marks on the crank so I'm just wondering what all your opinions are on what my next steps should be with the bottom end.

Thanks,

[TimE-J]

Little more done today as I've taken the first half of the week off so today I set about taking the big ends out and inspecting for damage. I'm happy to say that there seems to be no visible damage to either the bearings or crank cause but oil loss but normal visible wear from 172k miles on the clock, as far as I know they're original because of the date stamp on the back of the shells.

Got some prices of replacement bearings and bolts today from Ben at Coventry TPS (Thanks again!)

I've decided that while I'm close to a nearly stripped engine I've decided to pull the engine and box out so it can be properly cleaned and checked over and saves me replacing the shells upside down on my back. Tonight I also made a start on striping the auxiliaries off the engine ready for removal such the down pipe and most of the birds nest of winging harness and connectors.

Just a picture of the big end shells as we all like pictures in build threads.


Also when I was having a look around the engine I noticed some welds on the flywheel. As I've never seen an ABY flywheel up close I don't know whether its how it should be but is the ring gear supposed to be welded to the flywheel? Most I've seen are usually heated and shrunk onto the flywheel and this is how I've always replaced them in work?



More updates soon.