Rod Bearing Controversy

[Steam Driver]

I searched for this but must have used the wrong key words. Was there ever any concensus as to what to do for rod bearings given the recent discussions about the Glycos? I'm ready to buy some.

[neilca]

What is wrong with Glycos? I just got mains and rods from Pelican in Glyco.

[Steam Driver]

Apparently some have had some issues. There was a thread on this very subject only a couple of weeks ago and even Wayne got into it. Run a search on Glyco rod bearings and you will find it. I think the date was 7/2 or around there. Has images with it.

[Walt Fricke]

Here is what was wrong with my Glyco rod bearings, which had Calico coating on them. Compare to Glyco mains with the same coating. This is on a motor with maybe 2 hours, mostly chassis dyno.

[neilca]

Walt,

Have you determined if it was the coating or the bearing? From the pictures it looks like the coating didn't adhere to the bearing.

[Walt Fricke]

Naw, it was the bearing. Looking up bearing failure or the like on Google produced a site which showed a picture of fatigue failure or stress failure or the like. Looked just like this.

Some part of the substrate isn't up to the loads imposed. In my case that included 8,200 rpm on the dyno, but the engine with earlier production runs of Glycos (by maybe 8 years?) which was run to that had no issues (bearings good enough to make me regret the teardown). So it appears Glyco reformulated things for rod bearings which included a weaker layer in there somewhere.

Don't know if this would happen on a car not run beyond the stock rev limit (~6,500-7,000) of these early cars, or only occasionally run up that high (as in not raced).

[gtc]

Has anyone determined when this started happening? Walt, do you happen to have the manufacturing date from those bearings?

[safe]

Originally Posted by gtc

Has anyone determined when this started happening? Walt, do you happen to have the manufacturing date from those bearings?

I would be interested to know that too!!

I bought a set from Pelican late 2012, they are installed, but the engine has not been started yet.
This makes me a bit worried...

[juanbenae]

the 996 gt3 bearing will work for rods & mains on a 3L. I had gycos shipped, did a bit more research and went with the gt3 set and shipped the other stuff back. the glycos I got had a few visible scratches on the bearing surfaces and many other knicks & such that I did not have to even put my reading specs on to see.... the gt3 units were significantly nicer. only seems to reason that the tooling for the new stuff is newer, less warn??. I think horrible storage of them prior to packaging, and possibly old tooling contributed to the blemishes I experienced. by tooling I mean the molds and such they are produced with. I assumed they are pressed into a mold when near molten..

[Norm K]

Originally Posted by safe

I would be interested to know that too!!

I bought a set from Pelican late 2012, they are installed, but the engine has not been started yet.
This makes me a bit worried...

Ditto, except that I bought mine early this year and just got `em installed last weekend. Figures that I've already sealed the case, installed the P&Cs etc


I just came across this thread. Wasn't aware of any widespread(?) issues until just now. I did have one bearing half that was suspect and was fortunate enough to come up with another one. I have to admit that I didn't hesitate buying or installing them because I figured (hopefully not too naively) that Wayne wouldn't stock, sell and ship them if they weren't up to snuff.

Worried ...

[racerboyrt]

Have seen two cars lately, each with less than 3,000 miles on fresh motors, both ate rod bearings for no apparent reason. Suspecting faulty bearings.

Also, friend just got a new set of Glyco's and there is some tarnish and one looks slightly scuffed.

I'm not rebuilding my motor right away but others are now wondering what to use...

[racerboyrt]

This was one of the threads FYI -

Glyco rod bearing wear

[JFairman]

When I rebuilt the top end of mine 4 or 5 months ago I used Glyco rod bearings that were bought from Pelican around around 4 years ago. They were vacuum bagged in plastic on to a piece of white cardboard that was inside the box.
That protected them really well and they were in beautiful condition with no nicks or marks anywhere.
They are working perfectly in my '87 930 with excellent oil pressure and this is the only picture I have that shows a little bit of one of them.
I balanced all the rods to within 1/10 of a gram on a triple beam scale. You can see where I removed metal to do that.
I also had the rods resized and new wrist pin bushings installed and honed to fit the new wrist pins at a local automotive machine shop and Raceware rod bolts are installed in them.

[Steam Driver]

I think the fact that the bearings were purchased quite awhile ago is the key; something bad has happened at Glyco since then. I think all of the questionable bearings were acquired much more. Recently than that.

[Mr Project]

Well, this is not very encouraging. I did a rebuild with the Glyco bearings in my 3.2 last year. Everything went OK, they looked fine, mic'd out fine, and plastigauged fine. I've had no indication of issues, other that a bit more metallic sludge on the drain plugs than I might have liked over the first few oil changes.

Would an oil analysis tell me anything useful? Is it worth doing that?

[GT2BH]

I'm in the middle of doing a rebuild of my 3.0 and the glyco rod bearings are still in my cart. What is the recommended alternative?

[tom1394racing]

I have been told that the current problem is with the 2.4/2.7 and 3.2/3.3 rod bearings only.

[Steve@Rennsport]

Originally Posted by tom1394racing

I have been told that the current problem is with the 2.4/2.7 and 3.2/3.3 rod bearings only.

Tom, the 3.6 rod bearings are included in that group.

A good solution is in the works!

[VFR750]

Timely. I'm going to need a set of good rod bearings this winter.

[crummasel]

Guys, do you know what happens if you source the bearings directly at Porsche?
What do we get?