VW Vortex - Volkswagen Forum banner

big end bearings losing their tension

5K views 36 replies 3 participants last post by  garryt 
#1 ·
so done an engine swap over the weekend, and upon stripping the old one down I find the rod shells are loose:sly: what would be causing this??? no low oil pressure or strange noises prior to strip down. excessive oil temps or just high mileage maybe???
 
#3 ·
I guess so. that's the second 1.8 iv'e stripped down and found this. no sign of any damage, just the shells fell out very easily. I guess when they're torqued up they can't really go anywhere. will be getting new ones anyway if need be.
 
#7 ·
I just refurbished a 1.8 8V and it got 10W60 since I started it up. Runs great and does not use any oil. I change it out at 5k intervals.

Another hot topic, break in oil. The way I see it, all new engines built today in every car sold does not have break in oil. Sounds like the factory knows something about that.
 
#8 ·
I guess it depends how close to "break in" the engine is after it's been built. my engine build was a deglazed block with new rings fitted, so I thought I would err on the side of caution by using the cheaper mineral oil for the first 1k miles. was thinking of using 5w/50 oil after that. not easy getting the balance between fuel economy/power and good bearing protection right:sly:
 
#9 ·
There are many things about cars/engines that people are passionate about. The way I see it, if you want break in oil, great. I would agree that once things are run for a few hours, you may want to dump the oil out as well as all the particles the rings have scraped away. Using a break in oil would be ideal for that.
 
#10 ·
yeah I done the first oil/filter change at 250 miles. even took the sump off to clean it out properly. don't think the second change is as critical, but will be doing that between 1k-1500 miles. think most of the "metal dust" should be out with the first change anyway.
 
#11 ·
I'm in the middle of a turbo installation on my POS Caddy. I too took off the oil pan after I put some miles on the engine. I went thru the engine [new rings/bearings/cam/valves/port] but ran out of time for the turbo installation. When I did take off the pan, it's good knowing that there was not anything funky laying on the bottom. That was last year. I hope to have the turbo fully installed and running in a few days.
 
#12 ·
yeah in my opinion there is way too much oil left in the sump after draining from the plug. and the crap always tends to sink to the bottom and stay there even after an oil change:sly: I like to make sure the oil pump gets spotless oil as well as the parts beyond the filter:thumbup:
 
#13 ·
Mercedes designs their engines so you can suck the oil out of the engine thru the dipstick tube. The tube goes all the way down to the pan and it's lower than the drain plug. If you suck out the oil, then remove the drain plug, not a drop of oil drips out. I followed Mercedes lead and did the same thing to my wife's 2H engine [8V Digifant]. I recently checked to see if it worked, yup, not a drop of oil comes out after sucking it out. My vacuum tool fits on top of the dipstick tube so it's pretty handy. If I can only remove the filter from on top, it would be a piece of cake draining the oil.
 
#20 ·
when I first bought the car the 1800 was giving 28 psi, and that's with a smaller oil pump. of course the 2.0 I fitted has the rifle drilled rods and the piston oil spray jets which probably bleed of a little pressure. pressure reading taken from the side of the head by the way. I think I could get away with 5w30 fs but not willing to risk it as the 2.0 cranks seem more prone to spinning shells.
 
#22 ·
you're right. it's always better to er on the side of caution. but with synthetic modern oils giving better protection at a lower viscosity, you can have the best of both worlds:) I might try comma motorsport 5w50 when the summer comes though. think an oil cooler is on the "to do list" aswell.
 
#23 ·
while we are on the subject of oil, what gearbox oil do you use butcher? i'm running half and half 80w90 and atf. gives a nice slick gear change and could feel the difference in throttle response straightaway. tends to whine a little in 2nd and 3rd though, but the box has done well over 100k anyway.
 
#24 ·
I rebuilt my 020 several years ago, ever since then, I have a 2nd gear syncro issue. I tore it apart and replaced the syncro again and still the same. Only on a fast high RPM gear change. The syncro is not slowing down the gear set. I've tried several gear oils and nothing helps. GM Syncromesh seems to be the best.

I will be tearing apart this transmission again soon. I will be changing the final drive to a 3.42 [from a 3.67], swapping the Quaife to a Wavetec, new syncros, and a new 1-2 syncro hub assembly. I sure hope this fixes the high speed shift issue.
 
#28 ·
that was actually the old engine. I have a rebuilt one fitted now. there is very slight wear on the crankpins but it was running fine with no rattles or low oil pressure. it's basically a back up engine now, so not going to put too much time/money into it. it's the original block so I will be hanging on to it anyway:)
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top