One Nasty Transmission and Five Worn Out Bearings

I've been working on cleaning up the engine and transmission. I'll be painting the engine its original color while I have it out. I'll also be painting the engine bay the same color as the rest of the car.

I have a few more pictures to share of what I found and what I did when the engine and transmission came out of the car.



The engine main bearings are very worn. Possibly from running with no or low oil pressure. The first time I started the engine, it didn't have oil pressure because of the broken oil pump. I don't think all of this damage was caused by that, but it couldn't have helped. This bearing (the copper colored concave surface) is supposed to be perfectly smooth and shiny like the convex surface on the crankshaft. It has ridges that you can feel with a fingernail and is worn down into the copper. Catastrophic bearing failure was probably imminent. After seeing this, I'm actually glad that the release bearing failed when it did. This could have been a much uglier scene had I continued to drive the car in this condition. We're talking metal bits here and there and possibly pieces welded together because of the heat of the unlubricated friction. There are 5 of these main bearings in this engine and I'll be replacing all of them. That means the crankshaft has to come out.

Here's the transmission in progress and after cleaning. It's pretty clean. Next to tackle is the engine block. I'll be getting it as clean as possible and then priming and painting in the next week or so.















The plan is to get everything cleaned up, find all of the problems, and then make one big parts order for everything I need. I expect that will happen in July.

While I have it apart, I'm sending the dual SU HIF4 carburetors off to be rebuilt by an expert. I need a new radiator, heater core, and fuel tank while I'm at it. I'll also be replacing as much of the interior as the budget allows. In order to save a little money I'm going to try to pick up as many used parts as I can. Any engine internals will be the best new parts I can buy, though. That's not the place to be cheap.