Larry Macy wrote:
> Ok, now I am really confused. I drove the Midget home from the train
> station and immediately ran in and got a magnet. I pulled the dipstick
> and it is clean - no metal, no nothing, just oil a bit low.
Did you originally see the metal on the dipstick?
Is the tube around the dipstick intact? Any chance it is coming
apart and you got it on the dipstick last time you pulled it?
> Now I have noticed in the last few weeks
> a tendency to shudder at releasing the clutch when pulling away from a
> stop. I believe that this may be due to a thrust bearing being bad.
This is very easy to check, and should be checked anyways. Lie
down under the car, and use a pry bar to push and pull the crank
pulley forward and back. It it moves more than JUST noticeable,
then start to worry.
The thrust washer wear can get pretty bad without serious
damage, the only real problems occur when they wear so much that
it falls into the sump, and your crank is allowed to move
around and destroy itself. That's what you can check with the
pry bar.
> Also I saw that the oil pressure that had been running about 45 -50 lbs
> at cold idle was now running about 70 lbs when I left the train station.
> And almost 90 at about 3500 rpm.
Did you change oil types? Or perhaps it's colder there
than it was when you mentally recorded the "lower" values?
Oil viscosity and temperate can make oil pressure go all
over, as long as it's above minimum I wouldn't worry.
> 2) Order new bearings w/ thrust washer. (I have been told I can do this
> with the engine in the car and I have done bearing swaps in a Waukesha
> engine in the past)
You'll need to open the bottom end up before you
can order these, to be sure you are ordering the right
size. Unless you were the last person to rebuild that
engine, you don't know whether you want standard, -0.010,
-0.020, etc.
When you remove a bearing, it'll usually say on the back
what size it was.
--
Trevor Boicey, P. Eng.
Ottawa, Canada, tboicey@brit.ca
ICQ #17432933 http://www.brit.ca/~tboicey/
"Look Marge, Maggie lost her baby legs!" - Homer
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