I've gotten away with it a few times, when the damage to the crank was
absolutely minimal. I broke an oil pump shaft during a race and lost oil
pressure. Didn't shut the motor down immediately because I was in a bad
place. Better a blown motor than a crunched car. I pulled the pan at the
track and found only one rod journal with transferred metal, and that was
minimal. All the rod bearings had damage though, even though it was slight.
I cleaned up the journals--they looked fine--and replaced the bearings. I
also pulled the center main cap and found the bearing looked great. Didn't
replace that since you can't do the end mains with the engine in. Ran the
engine for the rest of the season with no problem. At the end of the season
I had scoring on the rear main. Had to grind the crank .010 to clean it up.
Only ground that one journal--I'll have a standard crank for as long as I
can since I have some really good bearings for it and only a few sets of
.010".
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-fot@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-fot@autox.team.net] On Behalf
Of WEmery7451@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 6:48 AM
To: tstrange@sbcglobal.net; fot@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: bearing help...
In a message dated 8/29/05 10:53:37 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
tstrange@sbcglobal.net writes:
<< I have a spit 1500 that wants to run one more race this season. We just
spun a rod bearing in it & I need a replacement. >>
When you spin a bearing, it is usually a one way street, unless you have
better luck than I had in the past. You pull the engine and grind the
crank, or at least the one journal to the next under size. I tried to just
replace a bearing once, and the engine turned into a massive explosion
during the next race. The rod could also be deformed.
In ancient days, I use to hear about grinding a journal with the engine in
the car. I do not know if they still do this.
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