My latest project started with buying a 1998 Malibu with a pretty severe rod knock for $200.00. A friend and I loaded it up on a trailer and drug it home.
The car had 172,552 miles on it at the time of starting the tear down/rebuild.
Here is what I saw shortly after starting the tear down:
Here is a view of the car- really not bad for a rust belt vehicle of that age and mileage
Engine out, pan off:
Those chunks are rod bearing- the kid ran it out of oil...
The rod journal:
Because of the lack of a rod bearing, the piston was hitting the crank:
Pic of the bore:
Pic of the bent rod cap:
Bore cleaned up pretty nicely with a light ridge reaming and a three leg hone:
Block is cleaned up and ready to go:
Balance shaft assembly and new oil pump. Also put new bearings in the balance shaft housing:
Wrist pin had some burrs and the floating rods weren't moving freely:
A little emery and Scotch Brite fixed that:
The three good piston rods are pretty much ready:
Crank in and ready to go (it actually cleaned at .5mm- approximately .020" under):
Short block is back together. I re-used the 172k mile pistons, just cleaned them really well. I did have to replace the #4 piston and rod though.
Head is back from the shop with a fresh valve job:
Skipping several steps (was in a rush), the engine is back in the car:
A little farther a long:
I tried to save money in several places- re-using what ever I thought I could, buying parts from Rock Auto and Amazon. In the end, I got hosed on the rings and bought from a different supplier. I rebuilt the injectors with help from fellow member "Trav" givng pointers and supplying the screens/o-rings. The car start and ran right off and hasn't missed a beat since. I did replace the timing set because I thought it was the cause of some noise (it was), but the replacement set did the same thing... It eventually went away. Dunno? Car now has 183k on it, runs perfectly and doesn't burn a drop of oil in 6-7k miles.
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