98 Cobra rod bearing

  1. Here's the situation: I own a 98 Cobra with 26,700 miles. A few day's ago it was diagnosed needing a new rod bearing.
  2. I'm told the only way to do this is to remove the engine. Seam's reasonable. Now Ford is telling me that it will be cheaper to buy a new engine and replace instead of fixing the old one.
  3. Now instead of paying 5-6000.00 dollars, im thinking that it might be better to buy a new 2003 Cobra.
  4. Here's the question, does the engine need to be replaced, or can the crank be pulled out and fixed? The thing is, it could cost several thousand just to fix the rod bearing. Is it time to trade in the 98 for the 03.

Any thoughts appreciated. Bill

Reply to
powell75
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Reply to
Rein

I dunno... I don't know how much you're going to get on a trade in for your '98 Cobra with a bad rod bearing.... especially if it's making any noises at all. They're gonna take one look at that and offer you about $6000 for the car.

Figuring new Cobras, even at discount and X-plan, are still gonna be a whole lot more than a rebuild for your DOHC.

You could always just buy an SHM DOHC engine and embarrass the stock '03 snakes. That'll cost you long green too though.

Good luck, and let us all know what you end up doing. If I wasn't in the middle of getting a project off the ground, I'd offer something for the car as-is just to see... but I don't even have the cash to bother.

JS

Reply to
JS

How did it spin the bearing?

I'm assuming you can't do any of the repair yourself?

What else is wrong with the car? Why would you want to trade it in? Are you prepared for the >$5k trade in value?

Curious, where are you located?

Brian

Reply to
EagleonU

As others said, I'd be curious to know how that happened. Is it driven like a rental car or is it a manufacturing flaw?

Reply to
Steve B

They sure as hell better not have seen this 100 times before. It shouldn't happen many times at all! That sucks man... good luck though :(.

-Mike

Reply to
memsetpc

It's probably about the same cost when it's all done. The cost of parts is pretty cheap - rings, gaskets, rod and main bearings, new oil pump, etc. An over haul kit isn't that expensive. But it's very labor intensive. It's a lot of work to remove the motor and completely tear it down. All the bearings and bearing surfaces have to be checked. With a spun bearing you probably have a damaged crank journal, which will need machine work to fix. Unfortunately, you can't just remove one rod bearing and replace it. If you don't, you'll be doing the job again in a few months. A crate motor is expensive. But it doesn't take much work to swap it out. An experienced mechanic can probably do it in a day, two at the most. So you save a boatload of labor charges. I would take this route if you really like the car. Of course, now's your chance to swap in a much better motor, too. I'm sure that car needs more power ;) If you don't like the car all that much, fill the crank case with

20W-50 oil and trade it in.
Reply to
.boB

at 27 Sep 2003, .boB [ snipped-for-privacy@codenet.net] wrote in news:3f75b3e7$1 snipped-for-privacy@corp.newsgroups.com:

Don't forget the Lucas oil stabilizer. It does work. I used 4 qt of

20W50 and 1Qt of Lucas when I had a knocking rod so I could drive it gently while getting a replacement engine and shopt to do that organized.
Reply to
Paul

If your willing to pay 5-6k just take it to a reputable shop and have engine rebuilt with top quality FORGED rods and pistons. You'll have a new motor that will take more abuse or even a power adder with no problems. If you willing to do the labor yourself you can find various 4v shortblocks for under 4k.

Ed

Reply to
BiteMe

I can only share what I've seen, but any bearing or rod problems on mod motors is not uncommon. But when they are on near stock motors I looks for things like incorrectly installed or torqued underdrive pulleys, out of balance flywheels or clutch installations. Other likely cause is high rpm use/abuse on an engine that is not fully warmed up. Pretty common on many drag racers. They seem to think that a cold motor makes more power. That's not the case. It's cold air, not a cold engine. 4.6s perform stronger and more consistently when fully warmed up.

Ed

Reply to
BiteMe

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Reply to
Rein

You have to consider the fees you will have to pay on that new cobra.

$1000 gas guzzler tax $2000 sales tax (at least) License & registration

You have to pay a lot of money just for the benefit of receiving pieces of paper from your benevolent government. Don't forget about the insurance too.

John

Reply to
John Shepardson

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