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Engine bearing job turns into complete disaster

toddball

toddball

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Ok, I had a shop replace main crankshaft bearings in my K5. It's a 350 with rv cam, stock iron heads approx. 135k miles since rebuild in 2010. Bearings were showing copper some down to the metal but crank was fine. First, they put the rear main seal backwards, leaking. Then after the shop did the rear main for 2nd time, the tech said it was ready. She drove it around to the front of shop but sounded like a rocks bouncing in a can. Top end noise, like valve train. I asked why does it sound like a diesel. She said thats normal, would go away after 1000 miles. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I said doesn't seem right, you sure it's safe to drive? It was at zero oil pressure. Shop says it had pressure when they first started it but oil pump must have lost prime the next day. Does that even make sense? Seems more like the rod came loose to the oil pump or not seated right to the dizzy. Then they replaced all the bearings, rod too. But said now a slight miss and says it needs lifters? I feel like this shop is not being straight with me. Is simply replacing all bearings and lifters going to fix the engine after running without oil pressure? What should I do?
 
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you got in to a huge can or worms of trouble .

all the stuff they did and said is kinder garden level bull sh!t .

never had a engine loose prime on oil pump that i have driven . oil pressure when cold then looses when warm = to much clearance .

did they check the old bearings to see the size on the back like if the crank and rods were cut and require specific size bearings ?

sound go away after 1,000 miles = if the engine ever would last this long .

go get help from someone to take action on them .

when its all said and done do your self a favor . get a new long block replacement engine and be done with this .
 
Right, so they put in the same clevite 77, .010 bearings that were originally in the engine. Said they plasti-gauged to check clearance.
But the fact they said it was ok to drive sounding like a diesel? Yeah, it wouldn't have made it out of Springs before the engine blew up.
 
What outcome can I expect contacting an atty or BBB? Isn't this negligence? Shouldn't they be liable for replacing the engine?
 
toddball said:
What outcome can I expect contacting an atty or BBB? Isn't this negligence? Shouldn't they be liable for replacing the engine?
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The most you can hope for is to get your money back. This is why I do not let anybody work on my square body Chevy. Most people have no idea how many a$$ clowns there out there learning to be mechanics on unsuspecting customers cars.

Owning an older vehicle requires more than most people know. There is no way to rely on a mechanics shop to keep an older classic car or truck running. you have to rely on yourself to do it.
 
slapping new bearings back on a worn crank is total BS... I don't care what he said the clearances with plastigauge were...prove it.

If you had the engine torn down already the crank should have been sent out to be checked by a crank shop. there's a lot more things to check on a crank that squoooshing out a few pieces of PG...

Let me ask you a basic question,, how much were you involved in directing the decision making process of rebuilding the engine ?

Did the shop call you and say things like...well that crank is close, but it will be fine, do you want us to go ahead and use it ?

cause if you did....your pretty much toast..
 
so did they do bearings without pulling the engine? yes, that can be done. And I have. But 2 things pop out here. Unless that crank was cut, it would NOT need .010 bearings! They do make a .005 bearing for worn cranks, which is a cobb job way to fix an issue...
2nd, if it was done in the truck.. There is NO WAY plastic-gage will be accurate! as the weight if the crank will be hanging and give you false reading.
I have NEVER had an engine pump loose prime!
This is total BS! but you will have to get a layer involved to get anywhere.
you will also need a "qualified" shop to support any claims in court. Which can also turn into added financial stress.
 
The crank was cut for .010. It was done in truck. Shop owner said crank is fine and just to replace bearings, I wasn't given any other option.
 
toddball said:
The crank was cut for .010. It was done in truck. Shop owner said crank is fine and just to replace bearings, I wasn't given any other option.
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When I mean the crank was cut for .010, that was when it was originally rebuilt in 2010.
 
toddball said:
When I mean the crank was cut for .010, that was when it was originally rebuilt in 2010.
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This is still sketchy. Do we know what caused the bearings to fail? maybe there is another oiling issue that's being overlooked?:dunno:
I know in the shops I worked in, I would have pulled the engine out and checked everything. But I have also re-ringed and bearinged an engine without pulling it.
 
1-ton said:
The most you can hope for is to get your money back. This is why I do not let anybody work on my square body Chevy. Most people have no idea how many a$$ clowns there out there learning to be mechanics on unsuspecting customers cars.

Owning an older vehicle requires more than most people know. There is no way to rely on a mechanics shop to keep an older classic car or truck running. you have to rely on yourself to do it.
Click to expand...
So yeah, I put this engine / transmission in myself, replaced pretty much everything that can break or needs servicing myself over the 10 years I've had it. I met the shop owner in town, said he used to have a K5. I moved to CO Springs from Tucson recently, so was looking for a shop to trust, even though I pretty much do everything myself. Rear main was starting to leak so wanted to get an opinion if it was time for new engine, especially after seeing the rear main cap bearing wear, when replacing the rear main seal. But the owner said, just slap new bearings in, should be good for another 50k to 100k miles. Engine pressure was fine before, never had any issues with low pressure.
This shop says they are classic car specialists, they have good reviews online.. Really shocked that the tech said an engine sounding like a diesel after doing bottom end work is OK. Additionally this shop owner said after talking to his tech, their story doesn't match mine.. He said I was pressuring them to release it (lie #1), It sounded fine when they pulled it up for me to take it after paying the bill (lie #2), that they never said diesel engine sound would go away after 1000 miles (lie #3).
 
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Here's my take. As soon as they found the bearings were worn down to the copper the engine is suspect. As in that metal had to go somewhere. The filter will catch most, but the cam bearings are questionable as well as the rod bearings, cam lobes and lifters.

If we would have seen that it would have been rebuild or replace time. My preference would be a replacement short or long block as we don't have a reliable machine shop locally to trust doing the machine work right on the block and crank. Plus turning the crank beyond what it's already been done is sketchy to me.

Fighting this shop with a lawyer is going to be a major succubus of money. They won't replace the engine and by the work they've done I wouldn't want them fixing it again. If you get a refund I'd say you got lucky.

Depending on how the shop reacts to you calling them out on shitty workmanship you might just have to cut bait and run. Get the truck out of there and bring it home or to someone that knows what the hell they are doing. You will be out some coin, but less than what it could be if they kept guessing and tossing parts at it.

Small blocks are cheap to buy assembled. The good old Goodwrench 350, performance crates or aftermarket crates are all at a price point that is much cheaper than it is to rebuild locally and go with a local machine shop to do all the precision work. I'd plan on a long block at least and start over.

Crappy situation for sure. Good luck taking them on.
 
only other option is if you paid with credit card maybe they can help fight it for you and get a refund .

as said at this point its toast if i saw copper i would have never done a bearing slap job my self . you have problems if copper is showing be it machine work or weak oil pressure or other stuff .
 
sweetk30 said:
only other option is if you paid with credit card maybe they can help fight it for you and get a refund .

as said at this point its toast if i saw copper i would have never done a bearing slap job my self . you have problems if copper is showing be it machine work or weak oil pressure or other stuff .
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I don't think I've ever heard of anybody doing a bearing slap job at a shop for many years to decades. It's an old school band aid but not a permanent fix. What's next using some belt leather as a bearing replacement? Worked on some old flatheads 70 years ago.

Arguably the small block Chevy engine is the most well known, common v8 ever. If a shop don't know how to fix one correctly they need to close the doors.

The static you already got with the lies is telling me they are taking a defensive stance and will fight you on it. Your word against theirs. The statement of added pressure by you checking on it is utter bullshit too. That's blaming you for the problem if you think about it.

Get the truck home. You could slam a long block in over a weekend better than those clowns fixing it.
 
only stuff i know of getting what they call in-frames on is BIG diesel engines . and even then there is special tools and steps to do in specific order.
 
Back in 1977 (when I was just a kid in high school auto shop) I did an in-frame job on a crankshaft on a 1968 Chevy C20 Suburban with a 396 just to get it running. I took the crankshaft out, and had it turned .010/.010. I also bought new bearings for it. It had spun a bearing because one of the rods was messed up from a PO revving it up too high. It worked for about 15,000 until it started to spin the same bearing again, which I new it would eventually. After that I had the money to do a complete rebuild on the whole 396 anyway. Since I had already done the crank the 396 was already half done.
 
I've rolled in main and rod bearings before, but usually I know the history of the engine I'm working on, and it's usually just because I'm into the motor for some other reason...

It has its place at times,,, but if it's got oil pressure issues or something like that,,, it's usually a short term fix...
 
Ok, yes I know the history of the engine since new. Never any oil pressure problems at all before. Doesn't use any oil / never have to add oil between oil changes. Why would the oil pressure drop to zero after they worked on it? Did they not put the the rod between the dizzy and oil pump body right and it came loose? You guys don't believe the lost of oil pump prime explanation they gave and neither do I. How do I prevent loosing oil pump prime in future (LOL)? I've put 100's of thousands of miles on squarebody chevy 350's never lost oil pump prime or even have one lose oil pressure.

Now that the owner put all new rod/crank bearings in again (after running with no pressure), he said it has good oil pressure, engine is quiet and but has slight miss at idle. Wasn't missing before. The lifters probably got damaged due to lack of oil pressure (that was the diesel noise), and now causing the miss. So wasted wages, if everything was fine except bearing wear (only reason bearing wear was discovered was because of rear main seal / pan gasket replacement), replacing bearings could have possibly worked?

What is normal wear on bearings for over 100k miles? Could desert heat combined with engine movement from stock motor mounts cause crank bearing wear? I've switched to the diy4x engine mounts awhile back.
 
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