Well, I finally got around to pulling the pan on my TR-4 this weekend -
you'll remember that my aftermarket fuel pump decided to fail by dropping
the lever arm inside the block.
What I found was not pretty. The lever arm had done a little dance on
top of the windage tray, whacked around by the crankshaft. Most of the
dammage was minor scratches, but there were several chunks missing from
the bottom skirt of the #3 piston liner (the liner I installed less than
1000 miles ago when I redid the engine - #$%@# fuel pump). In all, the
damaged area is a little over an inch long and 1/4 inch high. I
cleaned out all the metal in the pan and put things back together,
replacing both the oil and the oil filter. Engine runs fine now - no
knock or vibration.
Question I have for the group is whether I should worry about that missing
chunk of the liner. When I redid the engine, the previous liners had been
removed in the past by a PO with what looked like a chisel - the bottom
edges of all the liners were so damaged I replaced them. However, the car
had been running for some time with the damaged liners with no ill
effects.
I hope this encourages folks to avoid the aftermarket fuel pumps for the
TR-2/3/4 - I wish the PO of my car had!
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