Casing split

I finally managed to split the casing today, and get access to the crank shaft. Sometimes after a long day, its best just to walk away and take a fresh approach the next day. That approach worked last night and after using the car jack and mallet method, the casing came apart.

The Con rods had no damage and the piston pin bearing was in good condition, however the big end con rod bearings showed signs of heat damage. Especially the 2 units closest to the flywheel. There was also significant heat damage to the main bearings, again near the flywheel.

You can see the evidence of this as the blue colour discolouration on the bearings.

I removed each con rod, be careful to keep each bolt in position then lay them out on cardboard for which road came off which cylinder. Just take your time with stuff like this and the rebuild go a lot smoother.

The crankshaft itself seemed to be in good condition with very light changes in colour to the polished finish.

I think it will be possible to save it by getting it measured and polished at the machine shop. Ill then be able to select bearing size based on these measurements.

The car jack and cardboard really worked well to help split the casings.

 Heat damage to the bearings

Also some wiping and scoring was found on other bearings. Perhaps due to a lack of lubrications, especially on cornering.

 Serious heat discolouration on the main thrust bearing!

 

 More heat damage

 Crankshaft journals seem to be in decent enough condition. Im hoping that the machine shop can simply polish and measure them and save me having to buy an entire new crank.

I also found some minor wear to the head gasket too....only some small marks that can be seen below. The gasket is normally black and the greyish/white mark is the point where it is starting to die. It was a multi layer metal gasket material so there seems to be some wear in these locations, which I would guess would have failed first.

I placed the block halves in a plastic box and covered them in degreaser and used a paint brush to agitate most of the dirt off. After doing this a couple of times to flush the dirt, the block came up pretty clean. I then dried it by hand and also used dry, compressed air to get the entire block dry. Finally, I applied engine oil to the machine surfaces to prevent any rust forming.

 Finally, a picture of the entire STI engine in all its glory!