Guys... I just talked to him on the phone.

Bad news... the last oil change was done back in the summer when he bought the pulley from me. At that time I gave him a hard time because he had owned the car a year and never done one.

Listening to the motor on the phone and discussing how far into the red the oil pressure could go once it warmed up. It'* the lower end. Most likely a rod bearing has spun.

Nice one LuxuriesPremier!!!

yes, in the last year you should have done several oil changes....


but seriously , im sorry for your loss, and i hope it all works out for you

hhmmm im gonna hope that i can do what you said bill and have the oil pan dropped and the bearigns replaced. Is that a job me and my dad could tackle or is it very complicated?

Here is the problem with dropping the pan and changing the rod bearings. Usually when you spin a bearing, the oil gallery (passages through which the oil moves in the engine) gets a load of little pieces of bearing material from the bad bearing that moves to all the other bearing journals causing damage and possibly blocking the normal flow of oil.

Every 3800 I have repaired with spun bearings had lots of this debris floating around the block and heads that required disassembly and careful cleaning to remove.

Also, if you have a rod knock, you almost certainly have a damaged crankshaft journal, and maybe a distorted big end on the rod. It is very likely that a new bearing is gonna develop clearance quickly (and produce debris) when you install it on a damaged surface.

You might get lucky and effect a fix that quiets the engine temporarily. But that same journal will fail first and probably quickly, and all your work will have been for little benefit. You surely would not want to buy a car that had been repaired that way.

The fix is: Pull the engine. Disassemble and clean it. Pull the affected rod and have it checked and trued if necessary at a machine shop. Install a crank kit (reground crankshaft with new matched main and rod bearings.)

Or...just swap out the engine with a good junkyard motor. That is almost always the least expensive practical fix.

Thats my .$.06

Ditto on the crank journal. I've never seen an engine that spun a rod bearing leave the journal intact.

Short block time.

Ouch.

Yup. Jseabert'* L27 did this earlier this year. Spun too bad to turn it and use oversized bearings. New crank for him. He did it in the car without pulling the motor. It CAN be done.

I did mention it'* possible to do bearings and crank, however usually this is only a short term fix.