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What happened? A family member's insurance totaled a car due to this recently. We guessed he bent rods. What did you find?

by kw71 11y ago

Grishnakh 11y ago
One of the rods was bent, and the valves in that cylinder were also bent because the piston had struck them. I still have that bent rod/piston in a box somewhere as a souvenir: the bend was pretty significant. What's weird is my wife actually managed to get the car restarted after a while, and drove home that way!! It was making a terrible tapping noise though. I'm not sure how it was running that way; I didn't investigate too closely. This was a 2000 Acura Integra GS-R, by the way. Anyway, I left everything alone in the other 3 cylinders because that all looked fine, and I replaced the piston, rod, and journal bearings on the bent one. I also replaced all 4 valves. It wasn't really that hard; I took the head and new valves and valve seals to a shop that specialized in rebuilding cylinder heads and they cleaned it up (it already had close to 100k miles at that point, so there was a lot of carbon build-up) and replaced the valves. They also put together the piston and con-rod for me as I didn't have a press for that. Then I just did the standard bore honing and put it all back together (and cleaned up the domes of the other pistons while I was at it). Worked great after that. The total cost wasn't much either; the bare parts only came out to a few hundred IIRC, from one of those online OEM parts sellers, and the shop work was $250 IIRC. The only specialized tools I needed were torque wrenches (which you should have anyway, but they're absolutely critical for engine work), and an air impact wrench (the crankshaft pulley bolt on that car was a real bear), and a drill-operated bore hone (cheap).
- WalterBright 11y ago
  To get suspension nuts off once I had to get a 3 foot breaker bar and put a 2 foot pipe on it to extend it. Finally cracked that sucker loose! The manual showed a picture of a guy using a foot long breaker bar. What a joke.
  - Grishnakh 11y ago
    When the car's brand-new, you probably can use a foot-long breaker bar. Over time, though, they can get seized. I have a breaker bar, but I haven't used it ever since I got an impact wrench. You can put a lot more torque on a bolt with a handheld impact wrench than you can with a giant breaker bar; they're really a quite remarkable invention when you think about it. The one I have (1/2in drive Ingersoll-Rand titanium body) has 1000 ft-lb IIRC.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  Slight correction: the valves were bent because of the water pressure most likely, not the piston hitting them.

What happened? A family member's insurance totaled a car due to this recently. We guessed he bent rods. What did you find?

by kw71 11y ago

What happened? A family member's insurance totaled a car due to this recently. We guessed he bent rods. What did you find?

Grishnakh 11y ago

One of the rods was bent, and the valves in that cylinder were also bent because the piston had struck them. I still have that bent rod/piston in a box somewhere as a souvenir: the bend was pretty significant. What's weird is my wife actually managed to get the car restarted after a while, and drove home that way!! It was making a terrible tapping noise though. I'm not sure how it was running that way; I didn't investigate too closely. This was a 2000 Acura Integra GS-R, by the way. Anyway, I left everything alone in the other 3 cylinders because that all looked fine, and I replaced the piston, rod, and journal bearings on the bent one. I also replaced all 4 valves. It wasn't really that hard; I took the head and new valves and valve seals to a shop that specialized in rebuilding cylinder heads and they cleaned it up (it already had close to 100k miles at that point, so there was a lot of carbon build-up) and replaced the valves. They also put together the piston and con-rod for me as I didn't have a press for that. Then I just did the standard bore honing and put it all back together (and cleaned up the domes of the other pistons while I was at it). Worked great after that. The total cost wasn't much either; the bare parts only came out to a few hundred IIRC, from one of those online OEM parts sellers, and the shop work was $250 IIRC. The only specialized tools I needed were torque wrenches (which you should have anyway, but they're absolutely critical for engine work), and an air impact wrench (the crankshaft pulley bolt on that car was a real bear), and a drill-operated bore hone (cheap).

WalterBright 11y ago
To get suspension nuts off once I had to get a 3 foot breaker bar and put a 2 foot pipe on it to extend it. Finally cracked that sucker loose! The manual showed a picture of a guy using a foot long breaker bar. What a joke.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  When the car's brand-new, you probably can use a foot-long breaker bar. Over time, though, they can get seized. I have a breaker bar, but I haven't used it ever since I got an impact wrench. You can put a lot more torque on a bolt with a handheld impact wrench than you can with a giant breaker bar; they're really a quite remarkable invention when you think about it. The one I have (1/2in drive Ingersoll-Rand titanium body) has 1000 ft-lb IIRC.
Grishnakh 11y ago
Slight correction: the valves were bent because of the water pressure most likely, not the piston hitting them.