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Who had rod bearing issues?Please post details

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133K views 280 replies 78 participants last post by  Stefan_CA  
V
#1 · (Edited)
Hi guys,want to see if we get somehow to the bottom of the rod bearing failures.
I have some ideas what could cause them,but need the help of guys who had failure or bearings replaced.
Please post the milage,car model year,which oil you use,stock rpm limiter or higher and which climate you have(constant temperature all seasons or differences).

Thanks alot!
 
T
#2 ·
vantaam5 said:
Hi guys,want to see if we get somehow to the bottom of the rod bearing failures.
I have some ideas what could cause them,but need the help of guys who had failure or bearings replaced.
Please post the milage,car model year,which oil you use,stock rpm limiter or higher and which climate you have(constant temperature all seasons or differences).

Thanks alot!
Click to expand...
Spun two bearings right at 100,000 miles - replaced all rod bearings, main bearings, connecting rods and the crankshaft. Leith BMW in Raleigh, NC did the work.

Model year - 2000 - 11/99 build date
Oil - always Castrol TWS 10-60 - changed the oil every 4K miles
Stock rpm limiter - never hit it nor tracked the car.
Live in NC - USA - very moderate

Always warmed up the car properly - now at 207,500 miles - no engine problems since and car is still very fast.
 
T
#4 ·
2001 e39 m5 according to the service book always run on castrol tws 10-60, the car has done 138k i changed the rod bearings last week as preventative maintenance all of the top shells showed moderate wear bottom shells perfect no signs of oil starvation of cold start shearing just general wear, inspected two mains top and bottom absolute minimal wear, only had the car three weeks and apart from vanos noise car runs really well but after reading some posts on here about poss failure i had to look, not too bad a job to do either 9 hours drive in drive out done a lot worse, everything on the car is stock.
 
M
#8 ·
Good Job !
 
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O
#5 ·
Vantaam5 you are haunting my dreams again
 
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O
#7 ·
I am definitely doing this when the beast approaches 100k ( along with a complete suspension overhaul and hopefully the new JRZs/Dinan will be out by then ). The car now is turning 84k old
 
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J
#10 ·
Damn! 138K miles? Im approaching that! Dont the lower halves usually show more wear because of the downward thurst from the combustion? Most of the rod bearings i see have much more lower shell wear than the uppers! Actually come to think about it, the uppers ive seen generally show almost zero wear minus a couple motors which ran on no oil and spun a rod bearing then put a road thru the block.
 
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T
#11 ·
I've only seen the rod bearings of two of my own cars and all were visibly perfect despite being higher mileage and having 'British'* maintenance histories and in engines with higher specific output.

When you say 'average' wear, is it just that big V8s kill their bearings? Yours look far worse than mine are at 105k with only UK scheduled oil changes - although yours has gone a third as far again. I assume once they start to wear they go quick.

I'm wondering if an annoying vibration I could feel through the gearstick was my bearings - did yours have any symptoms?

I was depressed to see it only took you 9hrs until I read you were a pro... the third consecutive weekend has just passed with no time to spend on

Great job... I look forward to a documented full Dr. VANOS rebuild from someone!

Tom

*That is to say semi-synth oil changes every 15-20k
 
T
#17 ·
thomas.hood said:
I've only seen the rod bearings of two of my own cars and all were visibly perfect despite being higher mileage and having 'British'* maintenance histories and in engines with higher specific output.

When you say 'average' wear, is it just that big V8s kill their bearings? Yours look far worse than mine are at 105k with only UK scheduled oil changes - although yours has gone a third as far again. I assume once they start to wear they go quick.

I'm wondering if an annoying vibration I could feel through the gearstick was my bearings - did yours have any symptoms?

I was depressed to see it only took you 9hrs until I read you were a pro... the third consecutive weekend has just passed with no time to spend on

Great job... I look forward to a documented full Dr. VANOS rebuild from someone!

Tom

*That is to say semi-synth oil changes every 15-20k
Click to expand...
Mine did have slight vibration through the gear lever but that was the cv joint on the rear of the propshaft, don't be disheartened about taking a while to do your bearings its a job that not that many people would want to tackle in the first place, Vanos unit rebuilds next just waiting for the parts from dr vanos.
 
A
#14 · (Edited)
To understand how why the upper bearing wears the most you need to understand how lubrication of a journal bearing works. On the lower half where the crank will rest the lubrication will make a film between the crank and the rod bearing. When the crank rotates there is no metal to metal contact due to the lubrication film but to lubricate the uper half you need the crank to take lucubration from the lower half and up to the upper half. Over time you will have wear on the bearings and small movement over the places where the 2 half bearing meet and you will start to get small space here and due to the small increasing space between the two rod bearings the lubrication film gets partly destroyed so the crank will not bring the same lucubration film to the upper half so you will build up more and more metal to metal contact. The lower main bearing on the connection rods might just wear out due to the down force from the pistons along with lack of lubrication. Lack of lubrication might be due to very fine clearance between the main bearing and the crank so oil have a hard time entering between the main bearing and crank to lubricate.

But hey, just a thought.

I'm gonna check if SKF (where I work) have these bearing with the same dimension only with a stronger surface on the bearing that can withstand metal to metal contact better.
 
J
#15 ·
arotished said:
To understand how why the upper bearing wears the most you need to understand how lubrication of a journal bearing works. On the lower half where the crank will rest the lubrication will make a film between the crank and the rod bearing. When the crank rotates there is no metal to metal contact due to the lubrication film but to lubricate the uper half you need the crank to take lucubration from the lower half and up to the upper half. Over time you will have wear on the bearings and small movement over the places where the 2 half bearing meet and you will start to get small space here and due to the small increasing space between the two rod bearings the lubrication film gets partly destroyed so the crank will not bring the same lucubration film to the upper half so you will build up more and more metal to metal contact. The lower main bearing on the connection rods might just wear out due to the down force from the pistons along with lack of lubrication. Lack of lubrication might be due to very fine clearance between the main bearing and the crank so oil have a hard time entering between the main bearing and crank to lubricate.

But hey, just a thought.

I'm gonna check if SKF (where I work) have these bearing with the same dimension only with a stronger surface on the bearing that can withstand metal to metal contact better.
Click to expand...

Thanks! Makes perfect sense once its explained. Perhaps i was thinking of the main bearings im not quite sure. Sometimes this engine worries me with the rod bearing wear, given ive never worked on a motor of this calibre, ive torn apart engines making very similar power levels with the same or even twice the mileage that showed minimal wear on the rod/main bearings. My old VQ30 had some significant piston skirt wear but that motor did have 200K + and was making 3 times the power it came with stock.
 
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N
#21 ·
So far, this is turning out to be quite the disturbing thread. I am taking it to mean that the rod bearings are a major weak link in this otherwise bulletproof motor? And they're guaranteed to be worn by now in most normal, unabused, properly maintained/oiled S62s, with the assumption that bearings will spin somewhere in the 100k-200k range? Very disconcerting to say the least...
 
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V
#29 ·
Yo Andre,you can do the rod bearings by yourself;)Am confident you also tackle that down by yourself!Seems you have done then the Vanos refurb already,mate!
About the Vanos,I think on the past 2001 Vanos,it is enough to change the spring washers to get rid of the Vanos noise(notice,my 2003 also develops it,so I do the refurb)...
The tension of the washers gets less and this is why it develops noises.
BTW,I have seen a beast on saturday that also needs a new Vanos tensioner on bank2.Wonder if there will be also soon more around who have the rattling chain noise and have to change them.
 
A
#30 ·
Yeah, I changed everything expect the splines. I didn't remove the splines, just disconnected them from the camshaft so I could remove the vanos unit :)

Yeah, I guess I'm gonna end up changing them myself but first the diff and gearbox (after my engine is back together). I'm really glad I changed all the four chain-tensioners on the car. The main chain, bank 1 and 2 chain and the oil pump tensioner (this one where not pushing against the chain at all!!) felt much better after I changed them (and this without oil pressure).

But I dont wanna ruin you rod bearing so I'll stay on-topic.
 
V
#31 ·
The pics of mine.Notice the same wear pattern on the upper halves like in the previous posted pics!
Changed them at 80k,only TWS so far used!

<table id="post1656136" class="tborder" width="100%" align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td class="alt1" id="td_post_1656136" style="border-right: 1px solid rgb(255, 255, 255);">On all pictures the upper bearing is also the top bearing in the rod....



Bank2 bearings(bearing from Cyl.8 is the worst):
Image


Image


Bank1 bearings:

Image



Image
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->
<!-- / message --> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="alt2" style="border-style: none solid solid; border-color: -moz-use-text-color rgb(255, 255, 255) rgb(255, 255, 255); border-width: 0px 1px 1px;">
</td> <td class="alt1" style="border-style: none solid solid none; border-color: -moz-use-text-color rgb(255, 255, 255) rgb(255, 255, 255) -moz-use-text-color; border-width: 0px 1px 1px 0px;" align="right"> <!-- controls -->
</td></tr></tbody></table>
 
O
#33 ·
sbacchus said:
i try not to overreact to things like this, but those pictures give me a really bad feeling about 121k engine. did anyone get a dealer quote for doing this job? curious as to how much they charge, my indy doesn't want to do it.
Click to expand...
9-10 hrs X $ 150/hr
 
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D
#34 ·
My car has run a Mobil1 oil most of its life as a can tell by its history (probably the TWS oil for a start tough)
The owner before me changed the oil right before i bought the car and used Edge Sport which of course worries me.
So i will do an oil change ASAP.

The car has approx 180 000 km on it at the moment an has not been bottom rebuilt as far as i can tell.
Should i go with the TWS or stick to the Mobil1.

Reading these threads makes me wonder if the TWS oil is giving the bearing problems.


If someone just convinces me that this is not the fact i will place my order on: BMW M Serie / Z8 Castrol TWS Motorsport | 10W-60 | 1 ltr.
 
V
#37 ·
Most of the wear patterns shown from different engines are cold start wear.I have this confirmed at least on my engine bearings.
My opinion of the TWS was anyway never very high(it is an oil that was developed in the late 1990ies,better stuff around today).

If you look at the mobil1 bottle,it is approved by Porsche and their engines rev higher under more stress than our S62s.So why should be Mobil1 then wrong?:2:
 
D
#38 · (Edited)
My guess is (as what have seen in tests) that the TWS in coldclimate is very thick and is not suitable for lower temperature.
That would be no problem for me because i don't use it in wintertime.
On a cold night we will probably face nothing under 5 degress celcius anyways.

Although it feels like the extra coldstart wear is still there with the TWS even in summer since it's remarkable thicker than for example the Mobil1.

Mobil1: Köldtest av Mobile1 0w-40 - GARAGET - www.garaget.org
TWS: Castrol TWS 10-60 vid 20 Minus. - GARAGET - www.garaget.org

What worries me is the special features/additives the TWS and the EDGE got but the EDGE Sport dont.
If I'm correct here this is for the special oilpump in S62.

Does the Mobil1 has this additive??
 
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