# big end bearings losing their tension



## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

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???


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

I never really thought about it but I suspect the constant pounding on the bearing along with the heat allows the backing material to take a shape.


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

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.


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

found some "dry" spots on the crankshaft big end journals. probably why the bearings got loose, but managed to buff the journals up anyway. i'm thinking that 10/40 was not the best choice of oil grade for a 100k+ motor


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

Oil preference is a hot topic on any forum but I would agree with you. I'm old school and the thicker the oil the better. I use 10w60 synthetic oil in my VW engines. It does not matter if it's freshly rebuilt or 200k+ miles.


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

yeah its a fine line between good fuel economy and good oil pressure. i'm using 15/40 mineral oil at the moment to run the new engine in. just done a pressure test on it now. at 80c and idle i'm getting 32psi:thumbup:


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

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.


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

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:


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

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.


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

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.


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

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.


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

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:


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

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.


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

now that would be a nice idea, especially at this time of year. think modifying the filter would take a bit of thought though


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

my filters not that bad to do anyway. there's no heat exchanger on it and no ac pipes near it. its just a bog standard manual window/non ac and non pas 1990 model.


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

put some 5w40 fs oil in my motor. getting 22 psi pressure at idle and 80 degrees oil temp. all opinions welcome


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

Seems to be better than most. Anything over 1 bar is good. Is that with a good gauge or the factory stock one? Seems to be that the factory ones are not that accurate but then again, they are all past their prime.


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

it's actually a sytec fuel pressure gauge I use. only a couple of years old. shows bang on 3 bar when hooked up to the fuel rail, so seems to be on the dot :thumbup:


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

of course the engine never stays at 80 degrees for long. tends to run between 96 and 104. not sure who came to the conclusion that 80 was the normal running temp of the oil.


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

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.


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

I agree with the benefits of thinner oil but it's not for me. I'm too old to change. I used to run 20W50 and now I run 10W60. Synthetic of course.


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

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.


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

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.


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

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.


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## GTI's (Nov 27, 2011)

Butcher said:


> 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.


Curious if you took a look at the gear cone.


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## GTI's (Nov 27, 2011)

garryt said:


> 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???


Have you checked your big ends for out of round. Love it when people say I am rebuilding my block with 300k and just throw new standard bearing and rings and call it a day.


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

last 020 I stripped there was 2 different types of brass syncro rings in it. on the inside one was smooth and the other was ridged all round and grooved from side to side. can't remember which went where though


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

GTI's said:


> Have you checked your big ends for out of round. Love it when people say I am rebuilding my block with 300k and just throw new standard bearing and rings and call it a day.


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


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

I wouldn't bother with a crank regrind on a 1.8. good secondhand cranks are readily available, so might purchase one when funds allow. thinking of having the original bored to 1870cc too, but that's for another day:thumbup:


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

GTI's said:


> Curious if you took a look at the gear cone.


Yeah, but what are you suppose to see? Nothing abnormal. If it was worn out, I suspect I would be able to see a wavy surface. This was 15 years ago I took it apart and basically gave up on trying to fix it. When I swap things out again, I will take another stab at it.


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

garryt said:


> last 020 I stripped there was 2 different types of brass syncro rings in it. on the inside one was smooth and the other was ridged all round and grooved from side to side. can't remember which went where though


There are two different syncro's in a 020 transmission [probably more than two different versions over the years]. One is moly coated and the other is not. They look real similar and they can be swapped. I talked to BrokeVW and took some of his advice.


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

To rebuild an engine is not cheap what so ever. The machining bill alone will total the car. It's understandable that people just throw in new wear parts and hope they can get the engine to run better. I've certainly done that but I do not call it rebuilt.

To sum it up, it's a total waste of money to rebuild anything with little value. That would apply to all 8V VW engines.


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

well I could have the original engine "matching numbers" rebuilt as new with an 82mm bore for £500. so with the price of decent mk2s steadily on the up, I would say that would be a wise investment all lot of people are struggling to find factory standard cars now, so they are very sought after by enthusiasts.


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

I had a MINI cylinder head rebuilt from my machinist, $1000. It's not cheap around here.

I suspect that to properly rebuild an engine would be $1,500-$2,000 in parts and $1,000 in machine shop fees. Then you got labor to put it together. IF you want anything with performance, then the parts go up even more, a lot more.

Financially, it's a stupid move to invest that much money in an old car. I advise my clients daily that we need to watch what we spend on the car as the car gets older.

Fortunately I still like playing with cars and I get paid to do it too. I have no problems in dropping several weeks and $ on my POS Caddy.


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

last engine I had bored from 81-82.5mm cost me £150 (about $195). how does that compare to over there???


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

if the owner of an older car just wants to keep it running a bit longer before it heads for the scrapper then I agree, don't waste money on it. but I think it depends on the car. older "classic" cars should really be keep in tip top condition. mk2 golfs are cheap for parts and easy to work on, so there's no excuse to let them deteriorate and lose value. very satisfying having a flawless motor too, and knowing you can jump in whenever and drive wherever without incident


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## garryt (Dec 22, 2016)

garryt said:


> if the owner of an older car just wants to keep it running a bit longer before it heads for the scrapper then I agree, don't waste money on it. but I think it depends on the car. older "classic" cars should really be keep in tip top condition. mk2 golfs are cheap for parts and easy to work on, so there's no excuse to let them deteriorate and lose value. very satisfying having a flawless motor too, and knowing you can jump in whenever and drive wherever without incident


10k and still ripping along quite nicely


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