Short Nose Crankshaft Failure

My car didn’t want to run today, it kept dying unless I had my foot on the gas like I had a vacuum leak or something. Checked all my hoses and was stumped. Finally kept it running long enough to get out of the car and look under the hood and to my horror the crank was wobbling so bad the pulley looked warped. I guess now I have to pull it off and see how much damage has been done.

More than likely I will be looking for a 1.6 motor w/ a long nose crank. Anyone have any ideas on where I might find one?

PM Sent.

I'm wondering if I can just rebuild this motor and put in a long nose crank from a 92-93?

I think Channelmaniac might have done something like that. Raymond? You awake out there?

Ive got a long crank, with a good key.

sounds a lot like what mine is doing.

I haven't done it yet... I have a spare crank and was going to do it but haven't had time yet.

The motor I pulled from the spec had low oil pressure issues so I was going to see if it just needed new bearings or if I needed to put in the other crank.

RJ

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Originally Posted by channelmaniac

I haven't done it yet... I have a spare crank and was going to do it but haven't had time yet.

The motor I pulled from the spec had low oil pressure issues so I was going to see if it just needed new bearings or if I needed to put in the other crank.

RJ

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was that low pressure reading only on the dash gauge, or a real one you hooked up?

remember, my red car had low pressure on the dash gauge and great pressure on a secondary gauge

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Originally Posted by nealb

was that low pressure reading only on the dash gauge, or a real one you hooked up?

remember, my red car had low pressure on the dash gauge and great pressure on a secondary gauge

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Dash gauge, but the replacement engine has great pressure on the same gauge.

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Originally Posted by JDMClassic

I'm wondering if I can just rebuild this motor and put in a long nose crank from a 92-93?

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::Whisp:: forged internals ;)

Anyone in the metroplex rebuild motors? Replace crank, bearings, etc.?

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Originally Posted by JDMClassic

My car didn’t want to run today, it kept dying unless I had my foot on the gas like I had a vacuum leak or something. Checked all my hoses and was stumped. Finally kept it running long enough to get out of the car and look under the hood and to my horror the crank was wobbling so bad the pulley looked warped. I guess now I have to pull it off and see how much damage has been done.

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How bad was the damage??

Do you have a picture?

I haven’t torn it down yet, so no pics. The car would barely run and when it did the crank was wobbling really really bad. I can't imaging the crank and key are gonna be very repairable, and I'm not real impressed w/ the "loctite" fix either. Either way, the motor has gotta come out so I need to use the situation to my advantage. I'd really love to get a newly built FM motor, but I'm just not real sure I wanna drop 4k on new motor. My car only has 80k miles on it and is in pristine condition so getting a used motor w/ 120k or higher miles make me cringe.

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Originally Posted by JDMClassic

Anyone in the metroplex rebuild motors? Replace crank, bearings, etc.?

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I've used Arlington Machine in the past for engine work, as have a couple of car buddies. While I haven't chosen to have them reassemble complete engines (because I'm sometimes a cheap bastard), I do believe that they offer this service.

817-two six one-9022 is their number. Talk to Eddie. :D

I had always heard that it was way cheaper to replace the entire engine than to repair a LWSC (Light Weight Sport Crank) failure, unless you did the all the work yourself. If you find out differently, please let us know.

Is anyone still selling JDM motors? Those usually have low miles due to the wacky laws there that make it easier to replace a motor with 30k miles to pass their emissions laws.

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Originally Posted by Titus

I think Channelmaniac might have done something like that. Raymond? You awake out there?

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Yep, it came from my last engine!

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Originally Posted by cwisenheimer

I had always heard that it was way cheaper to replace the entire engine than to repair a LWSC (Light Weight Sport Crank) failure, unless you did the all the work yourself. If you find out differently, please let us know.

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Yep, you can usually pick up a decent take out engine for $400-800 complete.

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Originally Posted by black roadster

Is anyone still selling JDM motors? Those usually have low miles due to the wacky laws there that make it easier to replace a motor with 30k miles to pass their emissions laws.

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There should be, Eric Japan is the one of the more popular places to buy one. I bought one a couple years ago and I installed another one from them in a friends car about a year ago.

I haven’t had time to pull the I/C pipes out of the way but I did inspect the front of the crank pulley from underneath the car today, and it looked normal. The main center bolt looked fine and the 4 small outer bolts looked fine too. The crank pulley is not loose as far as trying to move it by hand. What should I be looking for?

I took some quick vids of the wobbling that concerns me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1apfMgWhsPo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agAE6Z_7lV4

Yikes... yeah that looks like a little bit of a wobble.

Over time we have seen the stock crank pulley, all year models become more out of round due to the stress from the drive belt pulling on it so this is not uncommon. You do not have a bad crank shaft. Find you a low mileage crank pulley or bite the bullet and get a new one.

Gary

So timing belt change and replace the crank pulley with a new one??