Nigel,
Bad luck - sorry to hear. In the USA we call that Murphy's Law. After an Irishman, of course...

Time for you to look onto the 3.2 threads, it's UPGRADE time.

As an Aside, I think that it is "very unusual" for a 911 motor to have a bearing sieze in street operation with oil on board..

Nigel,
Very sorry to hear that, I was hoping that the shop would cover the damage for you if it turned out they were responsible. I still have my doubts but since there is no proof...... On the bright side, you can now justify a 3.0 or bigger engine.

Sorry to hear about your motor. Have you spoken to Joe about rebuilding your motor or trying to find another one to install. Maybe someone on the board has an early motor from a 3.6 upgrade.

Joe built my 3.0 litre about a year and a half ago and I have nothing but good things to say about him and his shop. Good luck

Chuck

How does a rod or bearing just "seize"? What is the cause of this?

If anyone can answer Sonics question I'll gladly listen to the theories, but unfortunately nothing is provable. Oil starvation would cause it but the engine was full of oil. A general deterioration of tolerances/parts? After all they are 33 years old.

Joe is looking at options for me, $7000 for a rebuild is out of my range. To be honest, even if I can find a 3.0 or 3.2 at a reasonable cost once I have added the additional parts I will be in the same area if not more costwise (lines, fuel pump, harness etc). Most 3.2s I have found seem to run around $6k off the bat.

I also have $400 for the old engine strip before we even start the process - on top of $1000 I spent on the now useless tensioners.

Mondays, gotta love 'em.

Nigel,
As unfortunate as the case may be, I would still look at the upgraded motor route.
If that is not the end play....please let me know before you part her out, or sell it off.
I have a warm spot for your car because it reminds me of my 2nd car, though a yellow 74 914 .. I would love the opportunity to rebuild it.
I have been looking for a good project car, and yours as it is today is perfect. Rest assured, it would be going to a good home.
Please e-mail me if you would consider speaking.
Ken

i think this question also needs to be answered in order to relenquish any responsibility of the shop......or if this is just something that happens to old cars for a number of reasons, what are those reasons and could they AT ALL be related to the work that was performed?

this thread still just pisses me off.....bad $h!t happening to good people. nigel, I would get more specifics on this....

Who made this diagnosis? Hopefully not the shop that did the initial work.

Bearings just don't die for no reason.

If a rod is toast it could be the result of something else failing and damaging the motor.

nigel,
It's admirable of you to try to be objective and not blame the shop. Perhaps it is a very odd coincindence. But (you knew a "but" was coming) since the shop did install (presumably) oil fed tensioners, it seems possible at least that there was some compromise of your oil system, possibly resulting in low oil pressure which could starve the main oil feeds to your rod bearings. Even if there's a full tank of oil, if that oil feed line is flat...well, you know. I personally wouldn't be ready yet to let the shop of the hook.
Sorry about your misfortune.

Hi everyone. I'm getting to this thread late, so I can't benefit from giving the answers without knowing the outcome. For future searches, I'll add the following:

- The early T motors were not close tolerance motors. You can really screw up the cam timing, and still have the car run without the pistons hitting the valves. There's lots of room for error.

- The knocking noise you heard from the other thread was not a chain tensioner noise, but a rod bearing beginning to go (or something else on the bottom end). The shop that did the tensioner upgrade was only guilty of perhaps saying "problem solved" to you when they found the chain tensioners hadn't been changed in years.

- If the tensioners hadn't been changed in years (there is a maintenance / replacement schedule for these units), then it's likely the rest of the engine had been neglected as well. Dirty oil, and low oil can can cause problems in the engine that may not show up until later.

- If indeed the valves were bent, like originally theorized, it would have been more than likely that a rocker would be broken. The T pistons (and the E and S) pistons have pockets that have parallel surfaces to the seat of the valve. If the valve touches the piston, the valve tends to break the rocker, rather than bend the valve. On CIS pistons, the angle / curvature of the dome typically bends the valves upon contact.

- If the engine is seized, it's almost for sure not a valve problem. Even engines where the valve head has broken off and rattled around inside can typically be turned several degrees in each direction. This didn't smell like a valve train problem to me from day one.

It sounds like you guys may find that there's a spun rod bearing or main bearing. This type of damage is latent - meaning that the seeds of destruction were probably sowed a long time ago when someone ran the engine low on oil. There's not much you can do about this, nor is there too much you can do in a PPI to detect this...

-Wayne

Most rod bearing failures on this type of stituation are caused by improper oil level over time. Check the screen while changing oil , would have shown rod bearing failing. Would be Lucky.

The valve guides are probably still the copper ones and are shot and that will cause a dropped valve, without hitting the piston.

Honestly, I wasn't even thinking that it could be a rod knock when this thread started but it makes total sense now.

Nigel, looking at the costs involved you might consider fixing the engine yourself and getting a beater honda with cold air until its back on the road. When you are done the beater car you can probably get most of your money back out of it.

Plan B isn't as much fun as you could sell the car as a roller and live to fight another day. With the money that you will spend its possible to find another targa in about 6 months for what you would have in it after having someone build you a new motor.

Chuck

Sorry to hear it Nigel. I feel for you - Like real estate in Florida though - early cars seem to be appreciating these days. If you put some money in it you will likely get it out of it in the long run.

One last question,

Would or should a good wrench be able to tell the difference between a failing tensioner or impending rod failure? Is the difference that discernable? Not looking to lay blame, now I'm just interested. I've pretty much accepted the $hit sandwich that was made for me.

Seems that the valves were not the issue, purely a seized rod. If I had known the noise might have been caused by something else I would have specifically asked the wrench to try and check it - from day one I did say that the noise did not particularly resemble the description I had read on the board of a failing tensioner - the 'chain being dragged across a tin can', however the noise did sound chain/case related.

In the 3 and half years I have had the car I have been pretty religious
about oil changes and oil levels, especially as I did use (past tense) the car daily. I'm putting this one down to an unavoidable experience.

I would like to thank the board again for the help received. The one good thing is I'm glad I didn't jump to any premature conclusions regarding the demise of my engine.

It probably depends. I think you should be able to hear a rod knock over valve train noise. A rod generally shows as a knock at low rpm and can go away at higher engine speeds. One should be able to listen to the left and right side of the engine (with a rod to your ear) and notice that no side is noisier than the other and that may indicate that the problem is elsewhere.
The few times I have witnessed tensioner related rattles, they tended to get worse at a higher rpm at a "resonance" rpm and they were mild at idle. Also, the valve train tends to make noise at 1/2 the speed of the crank, that's at least true for valves ticking etc, but may not be very helpful with chain noises.

That all said, I can see where the shop is coming from. These cars are prone to tensioner problems and it is more likely that there is a failure in that area than a rod bearing letting go. It probably was tempting to give you a recommended upgrade and see if that won't fix the noise. I sure would not aim at the bottom end before replacing everything in the valvetrain, since that's comparably cheap.

Get a beater for daily driving and take your time rebuilding this engine or buying a nice 3.0 or 3.2. I recommend you take your time and do it right, so you will have a trouble free engine for many years to come. Don't cheapen out and buy an undocumented engine.

George

Now - if the rod was knocking when it was taken in - and they did the chain tensioner upgrade and took it for a test drive, wouldn't it still be knocking? Did they test drive it before sticking you back in it? Usually rod bearings are either on or off - nothing intermittent... That's one of the things I like about Joe - a car usually doesnt leave his shop until he drives it.

Jeremy has a very good point!

George

DO NOT SELL THAT CAR!

Just don't do it, man.

eek