How do you find a spun rod bearing?

[v8ranger]

you got to find that noise soon. i'm going nut's here waiting! maybe i'll have to go up there and pull it apart. lol. oh i didnt tell you guy's, big truck went down, out of work. got coolent in the oil. not known what broke yet. i do know it will cost between $1200.00 and $7000.00. and me with no money. got to beg for a loan. the company i lease to said they will pop me a loan. or this is a big site, everyone could send me a dime. lol. i'll have lot's of time to tinker with little ranger now....the old trucker

Man that sucks, nothing ever comes good out of coolant in the oil..............

[MalcolmV8]

Sorry haven't set foot in the garage yet, it's driving me nuts too, every time we have a warm day I wish I was driving the Cobra. Hopefully this weekend I get to tear into it some more.

[87sc302]

MalcolmV8

Any progress on the mystery noise?

[MalcolmV8]

Not yet, been swamped with work and then this weekend it snowed so garage is freezing cold.

[MalcolmV8]

OK I finally have the passenger's valve cover off. Now what? I have no clue how to tell what's ticking in there on these motors.

[Warpig Racing]

Get an old towel and lay it down next the to head. have someone fire it up and see if you can hear or see anything causing the problem. It will be messy but as long as you dont rev it up, it should limit the mess.

[v8ranger]

After thinking about it, I can remember years ago when I worked at the Mazda dealer there was one if the duel over head came Mazda motors that use to get a knock in them. It ended up being that the valves came so close to the pistons that if there was any build up of carbon, it would make a knocking noise. There was two ways to fix it, dump this cleaner stuff in the intake while it was running and then dump it in very fast till it stalled the motor, then let it sit for like a half hour or so. Start it and the smoke would just be so thick you couldn't see anywhere. Drive it till the smoke cleared and the noise would be gone. This was on the tough ones that wouldn't clear up the other way. What it the other way? funny you should ask, we would take the car to the highway for a test drive. Stop on the side of the road, and take off like a bat out of hell......... red line the motor in the first 3 gears and low and behold, by the time we got back to the shop the noise was gone. We would drive it like we stole it and that would fix the noise 95% of the time. The customer would ask what did you do?.... Mam/Sir, you don't want to know...........

[MalcolmV8]

Humm how do you think I drive the Cobra? Trust me there's no old lady driving carbon build up. Plus the noise came about after a very hard night's running doing 0 and 40mph to 160 sprints and back to 0. Lots of them back to back.

As for firing it up without the valve cover is oil gonna go flying all over or just lightly splash out? I know it sounds silly but that car is so clean, even the underside is as clean as the top. It has no dirt and grime or oil or anything on it anywhere. I have fun in it and drive it hard but I keep it clean too, no rain or snow driving.

I'll have to re-install the intake plenum off the supercharger and the throttle body and mass air etc. to fire it up. It runs right over the passenger's valve cover area so visibility will be limited but if it's anything obvious hopefully I can spot it.

Thanks
Malcolm

[v8ranger]

Humm how do you think I drive the Cobra? Trust me there's no old lady driving carbon build up. Plus the noise came about after a very hard night's running doing 0 and 40mph to 160 sprints and back to 0. Lots of them back to back.

LMAO..... I would hope you wouldnt treat it like a grand ma car lol.

[Bazowak]

Malcom,

After talking to a Mustang friend of mine he was telling me that one of the weak links in the corbra motors is the pistions. Even though they are forged they are a lesser forging in comparisson. The Cobra motors even have (new for 2003) a Manley forged H-beam connecting rod. After doing some research of my own the pistons seem to be the weak point in the engines. From what I have found is that most people have been having problems with wrist pins and actually having pieces of pistons come apart and the broken parts floating around in the chambers.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but this might mean at least cylinder head removal. Not a fun job as the head bolts are very long and reach down to the main web area of the block and of course they are torque to yeild and good for one time use.

I know this is some bad news maybe but some information is better than no information. Good luck with it and I feel your pain as I'm fighting my Rangers 2.9 right now with wasted rod, main, and cams bearings.

[MalcolmV8]

I've been noticing the same thing on the Cobra forums. Almost all engine failures, asides from tuning problems, are the pistons. Chunks missing off. Some are right off the top corners and can be seen with a bore scope, others are slightly lower than the very top and could not be seen till the pistons were removed from the block.

If I have to pull the motor and strip it to a bare block, get it bored .20 over and put in new pistons and rings I may just get a new long block. The cost of all the machine work, new pistons and rings, gaskets for the entire motor, head bolts etc. etc. is going to be a lot I'm sure. I need to price it out and see which is the better way to go.

Another advantage of the replacement long block is they are using revised heads that address a cooling problem for cylinders 7 & 8 in the older heads I have.

[MalcolmV8]

Holy smokes, called and stock 03 Cobra pistons list for $309.52 EACH. As in one piston LOL. There's a dealer on svtperformance.com that gives nice discounts and he can get them for $228.12 a piece. Even that is $1824.96 for a set of pistons.
I'll be getting aftermarket pistons though for strength, just thought it was interesting how much the stock ones cost.

[MalcolmV8]

OK so I called the machine shop.

$200 bore and hone block with torque plates
$125 to surface the decks
$75 ~ $125 to line bore
$75 to surface heads
$500 to $700 for a set of pistons
$350 to assemble short block
$45 to polish crank
$175 to $200 to balance crank

Choosing middle of the range $600 pistons that totals $1720 just in machine shop visit. Gaskets and head bolts and everything else to close up motor is going to cost me well over $2000 and a lot of down time.
The rebuilt long block for $3710 deliver to my door doesn't seem like much of a bad deal any more.

[Dave]

Yep, any more, getting a long block or crate motor is the cheaper easier route. I couldn't believe how just the price of gaskets has gone up, maybe I ought to do more motor work.
Dave

[MalcolmV8]

Ahh the long blocks went up 1st of the year. They are $3906. Humm can I rebuild my motor for $2k or do I get the long block for double that..... decisions decisions.