endplay problem

I am a total newbie at bugs so don't take the following as gospel -- lacking the true bug experience I go with what I read and am told so am just passing that along.

Did you see that large endplay before you stripped the flywheel off? I stripped my engine down for the same reason very recently. Found oil all over the clutch and my endplay could measure with a yard stick so didn't bother fudging it with spacers :) Since my main bearing seat is beat out, I need a new case.

In checking what was up with my engine, I do remember that max endplay is 0.006 and that you should not have more than 3 spacers. Also many mention that one should replace your gland nut to make sure it all reseats properly. I was tempted to use an impact wrench but was afraid to damage something -- it should come off with a steel bar mounted to the holes on the flywheel. I had to hang on my 5 foot cheater bar, supporting the steel bar on a saw horse so that the engine wouldn't tip. It finally made a gawdawful 'queeek' noise before it gave in and came loose. (256 ft/lbs my foot!)

I am sure others here can steer you in the right direction. My babbling, if anything, keeps your message on top of the heap so many get to read about your problem :)

Remco

Two things come to mind. 1) The front main bearing (behind the flywheel) can wear out the case in a manner that will look like endplay but it is bearing slop (back & forth). 2) Sometimes there is an interference problem with the crank. If someone built this engine & didn't check that, it could be the problem. Check it by rotating the crank without the flywheel, in the direction that forces it towards the front (flywheel side) of the engine. If it hits something & moves rearward then that is the problem.~ Paul aka "Tha Driver"

Easy on the Giggle Cream!

Remco, Thanks for your reply.

We also hung off of that bar and beat that bar with a sledge whale hanging off of it, and anything else we could think of. Our bar was over 6 foot long. We bent several pipes trying to get that blasted nut off. That is what destroyed the pulley trying to keep the engine from turning whale we stressed that 220lb gland nut (right 220 my foot). We didn't check the end play before removing the flywheel or cutting off the destroyed pulley, so I don't know what it was prior. I just know the engine ran normally. Now it wont turn at all when the flywheel is on (except for about 5 degrees), but will when the flywheel is off. Something internally is preventing it from turning freely. I have never been inside to be able to figure out what is happening.

I worry that the pulley is not seating properly and therefore the crank is out of its proper place and therefore something internally is hanging up. (lifters?) I don't know. If anyone has experience with this please let us know.

Thanks.

Robert

The pulley dosen't have anything to do with it. The endplay is set by setting it at the flywheel end (as you know), & it is simply the clearence between the flywheel, ft. main bearing, & the crank (the crank has a flange behind the bearing). However, if the bearing has play in the case, you cannot remove it with shims; too many shims will only lock up the crank against the bearing. ~ Paul aka "Tha Driver"

Easy on the Giggle Cream!

Ok, that must be the reason why they suggest only using three spacers. I only knew that there was a max quantity, not the reason.Thanks for explaining that, Paul. Btw, is there a minimum quantity as well?

What you described in your previous post happened to me: the seat of the main bearing had machined itself out along the axis of the crank. The actualy bearing looks ok, strangely enough. Before I had the engine apart, I actually thought there were four spacers on the shaft, because I could move the main bearing that much. (I was only half kidding saying I could measure the slop with a yard stick) It was so bad that the flywheel was allowed to touch the case and had actually worn a groove in it. Robert, if you want me to send you a picture to clarify it, let me know.

Remco

the pulley is not your problem, it has nothing at all to do with endplay. Also, the pulley is not supposed to sit flush with the crank, but rather it "won't go in all the way". The crank end sits recessed in the pulley hole.

Lifters can not be the culprit either. They don't have enough room to come out of their bores far enough to cause trouble (remembering you said the engine ran before).

With the flywheel removed, there should be tons and tons of fore... I mean endplay.

Try to move the crank in and out, and see if the big bearing moves with it. Like someone already said, the bearing could have endplay in itself, and there's no way for you to eliminate that by adding shims. Using too many shims woudl lock teh flywheel to the bearing thrust face, and the "degree or two" of movement is actually teh bearing trying to turn in the saddle. It can't move though, because there's a ratainer pin that's holding it in place. DO NOT APPLY FORCE to it like this!! You will elongate the hole on teh bearing where the pin goes, and as a result you might get nasty vibration and accelerated wear as the engine runs. Of course, this may have happened already, since you reported having that couple of degrees of movement there with a stack of 5 shims. This would very well explain the bearing end play - it was able to move and vibrate enough to wear more room for itself. Rubbing against teh hard case material ate away some of the bearing metal.

Now, normally you would be told that the only way to fix this is to tear teh engine apart and replace the bearing with new, and the case would probably also require line-boring. However.. there's a redneck trick available for extending engine life just enough to allow you to save up for the big repair, and get you back on teh road for a good while. It's a redneck hammer-mechanic trick but it works.. in a pinch, as a temporary solution:

You push teh crank all the way IN from the pulley end, and support the puley or pulley bolt against a wall or rest the engine on it's nose, pulley against the floor. You can use a solid metal object of some kind as an extension between the wall or floor and the pulley. The idea is to apply continuous force to it, pushing it in, that WON'T budge.

You then (flywheel removed) take a flat end punch and a heavy hammer, and "peen" or punch the bearing thrust surface inwards, sort of "crushing" it against the bearing saddle, from 6 to 8 spots. You get 6 to 8 indentations on the thrust face that will eliminate the BEARING end play almost completely, (because the crank is pushing the bearing outwards too and the wall or floor on the opposite end of the crank won't allow it to back out as you hit the bearing...) and if you kept the punch distances even, the distortion of the bearing thrust face would also be even... still offering relatively smooth and straight surface for the flywheel (shims) to lean against. Now you can shim it up to spec again using the recommended 3 shims. Coat the shims with clean motor oil before assembly and wipe off the excess. Run a fine grit wet sandpaper or emery cloth over the radiused sealing surface of the flywheel to remove imperfections and caked on dirt.. and coat it with vaseline. Then mount the flywheel according to instructions, preferrably with a new seal, which is what got you in this predicament to begin with :)

Remember that this trick is to be used only as a temporary fix, in an emergency... such as "I'm broke and I need the car back on the road tomorrow".

You STILL need to worry about the elongated bearing retainer pin hole, the CAUSE of the problem has not gone away. It will continue eating away both the case and the bearing itself, at an exponentially accelerating rate. Worst case scenario: the pin will slip out of position, get wedged between saddle and bearing, possibly in the elongated hole it dug earlier, and the bearing will start spinning with the crank. it will soon shit itself royally, rendering the crank and the case pretty much useless, beyond repair. Depending on bearing type, (there's bearings with oil grooves cut in the back, and solid back bearings with just an oil hole) the oil holes that deliver oil between the crank and the bearing will no longer line up, and the crank will self destruct in a matter of seconds due to oil starvation. All it takes is A COUPLE OF DEGREES of mis-alignment in the direction of rotation ;)

Hope this helps.

Jan

Yes, I would like any photos you may have. especily of anything inside the engine you may have. that bearing wearing itsself out along the axis of the crank. I suppose that is what is wrong here. There is a lot of endplay. Is that front main bearing exposed when the flywheel and the spacers are removed?

Thank you Paul for letting me know about the flange on the crank against the bearing in the rear, that the pully seats against. That advice perhaps has saved me several hours of struggling by moving my diagnostics away from that issue back to the front end. I sure think something internaly is hanging up. When that flywheel is removed everything seems to turn normaly. I will try forcing the cam forward whall turning it like you sugguest and see if it hangs today. If that happens how do I fix it. tear the entrie moter down? boy I dont want to have to do that. We just wanted to stop the leak. this has turned into a big mess.

Remco, (a personal note. My Grandpa started a business years ago named Remco Hydrolics in a small town in Northern California the letters stood for all the partners first initials of their first name Robert, Ed, Max, Charles, and odballs :) I like your handle.

due to overheating, or excessive endplay, or BOTH, the flywheel main bearing is loose in the case.

You are having to tighten it up with excess flywheel shims and when you do this it pulls the crank away from it's normal location, and the crank cheeks are hitting the case.

You need a new case Robert. It's shot.

John Aircooled.Net Inc.

I wish you would learn not to sugar coat things so much. LOL

Ok -- later, when I get home, I'll send you pictures of what I encountered. If you do have to open the case, it is actually pretty easy. Just take copious notes and you will find out that a digital camera can be your friend :) Jan's idea sounds interesting too, though.

Yes, I could see the edge of the bearing with the flywheel and spacers off. Because of the end play, the edge of the bearing looked like another spacer initially and was able to move it back and forth -- that is not supposed to be like that, though, as already mentioned.

That's funny -- I like the oddballs part. Well, Remco doesn't stand for anything in specific. My ancestry is Frisian (northern part of the Netherlands) and Remco used to be a fairly common name there in the early 1900s, from what my father told me. I've only met one other Remco there until I came to the US and found there was a toy company with the same name. I am honored to have the same name as your grandpa's business. :)

Jan, Thank you for this info. It sounds like you have found and solved my problem at least temporarly. Your description is very clear and I think we can do this. I am not certin of two things though, the bearing thrust surface must be the surface of the case as you are looking at the Main bearing, the surface that the shims seat against. I assume the Bearing saddle is the machined surface that the bearing sits in. the part that the outer edge of a bearing would be in contact with. is this correct?

Robert

It's *precisely* three shims. The thickness of the shims varies according to need, you can get them in different thicknesses to fit your need.

ouch.

I have also seen a bearing spacer being used, when the bearing saddle was machined thinner that you could find bearings for. The hard, piston ring -like spacer was slipped between the bearing saddle side and the bearing thrust face. Finicky, but it worked. For some time. Until the engine ewas brought to me for a rebuild.

jan

Not the case, but the bearing flange itself. That's what the shims seat against. The shims, nor the crank, never meet the case.. as long as everything is right :)

I'll put some pics up later tonight.

Jan

or having the case machined and thrust surface cut to size with a special oversize bearing. Time for a major rebuild

Jan are you saying that the metal that is altered with the punch is on the bearing its self? isnt that steel very hard and wouldnt that dammage the balls inside of the bearing if they received impact? I have used simular technique of expanding metal to hold things inside of steel (such as a ball bearing with a spring inside of a hole drilled into a body of steel for a notched feel on something that would turn. ) I assume that your technique you are describing to hold that bearing in place is describing the same thing.

is this correct? or am I confused?

Robert

Yes. The bearing flange gets "punched".

It's not steel, it's very soft material actually.

There are no balls, this is not a ball bearing. It's just a solid ring of very soft metal that "sucks in" dirt particles and has a smooth, slippery surface. There is always a film of oil between the bearing surface and the crank when the engine is running, theoretically teh crank is always floating in oil. So you see, if the oil is missing, you have metal rubbing against metal that isn't supposed to move, and damage will occur immediately.

Well.. the bearing thrust side flange has been eaten thinner. So my trick makes it "thicker again"... like this:

before:

| | | | | | | |

after:

| | |

Picture:

Note that this is NOT A REPAIR

it's just a half-assed backyard mechanic way of squeezing a little more service out of a badly worn engine, until it can be rebuilt properly

Jan

The stock saddle width here is 22mm. The saddle sides often wear too, when the bearing gets sloppy, and as Peppe said, the bearing saddle is then thrust cut to next undersize. Like 21mm. You get a bearing with 21mm "Flange spacing" instead of the stock 22mm.

On TOP of that the saddle probably is worn on the face side too, so you have to line bore the case. Then you need a bearing with bigger outside diameter. They are available in increments of 0.50mm up to 1.5mm oversize.

If your case needed to be bored beyond 1.5mm oversize, it's definitely trash, you can't get any bigger bearings. Even if you could, the saddles have started to collapse anyway and the case is doomed to have a very short life. So there's no point in trying.

Of course.. I have a proven backyard mechanic solution for that too (Up here in the north we don't have easy or affordable access to new cases, so we have had to learn to make do with what we have) but I'd rather keep the secret to myself. John Connolly there would cringe for sure :) LOL (Yes, another band-aid solution... but if it's a rare case that you must use due to historic value or something...numbers matching car etc. )

Jan

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 19:42:34 +0200, Jan Andersson scribbled this interesting note:

Keeping secrets again???

-- John Willis (Remove the Primes before e-mailing me)