Engine Update

I knew I was in trouble when Ted from TSI called and asked me if I was standing up and wanted to take the news like a man !  Now I was already  prepared for the worst, so I told him to let me have it ! ;-)

As a review, the two half- moon- shaped things laying in the oil pan (below) are called thrust washers.  Their job is to control the fore/aft movement of the crankshaft.....they should not be laying in the oil pan!

They should be nestled in on both sides of the crankshaft's rear main bearing journal.  Because of wear, they dropped out of place and allowed the crankshaft to bang into the rear main bearing cap, causing all those metal pieces and shavings you see in the oil pan.

The short story is my crankshaft is scrap metal.  But what about the block and the cylinder head?

Well, it seems someone had already been into Tillie's engine.  The block bores are already 30+ thousandth over,so I would need to go to 40 thousandths over...pushing the limit, and the head had already been milled down 55 thousandths, again pushing the limits.  Rather than rebuild an engine of questionable strength, I asked Ted if he had a different stock engine we could use for the rebuilding. He checked and came up with an engine out of another 1974 TR6 that was in running condition when it when it was salvaged. 

The new '74 engine was sent off to the machine shop to be cleaned, pressure tested, and measured. The report back was that we now have a solid engine to rebuild.....stay tuned !