SET OF CRANKSHAFT BEARINGS $499

Are they special?

They've been a little hard to find, but I do believe they can be found for less if you look around. The question is if you need an oversize.

Nothing.

Other than they're priced at 4 times list price, I don't think there's anything special about them. The price of a crankshaft from these guys is positively obscene. Used std./std. cranks go for about $100 here in the US. Their price? $1741. Granted, it's new, but come on ...

The Cap'n

I'm a little nervous about this with my rebuild. I'm working on the assumption that my 2.0 case needs an align bore. If this turns out to be true, how hard is it to find 1st oversize case/std crank bearings? 1st/1st (in case crank needs grinding)? How expensive are they? I've seen German std/std in the $125 range online. I could just ask the machine shop, but I'm here at the keyboard at the moment

Still cleaning parts before taking to the machine shop, but my budget is getting stretched pretty thin for this rebuild. Want to prepare myself for sticker shock if necessary.

The good news is the heads look to be in very good condition. Machine shop will be the judge of that, though.

Bearings are pretty well available at this point. They may not be quite as good as they were back in the day, but they'll keep you going. And there's not really any other options, so you can only fret about it so much.

Sounds good. Thanks for the re-assurance!!

I is rare that a type 4 case needs to be line bored unless somebody got stupid.

T4 bus engines often need align boring, but they also have damage to the thrust bearing area of the first journal, and many of them get thrown away. A few years back I went through 5 cases to get 2.

The Cap'n

Aside from Jake, are there other cases of failed crank bearings that we know about as a group?

From this new batch???

rich

Thanks again for all the input.

Based on my type 1 experience, the case looks pretty good. None of the typical markings in the main saddles that indicate the crank and bearings were walking around. This is my first Type 4, though, and there's the magnesium vs aluminum thing, yadda yadda. The cam bearings were showing copper and the cam lobes show the tell-tale notch, but the crank and main bearings look really good. Smooth and consistent coloration (silver) across the face and nothing my fingernail catches on either the mains or rods.

I bought the car from a guy that owned it for 30 years and bought from the OG owner. It's clear the engine wasn't abused and both owners kept up with the oil changes. It would be great if it doesn't need align boring, but it sounds like bearings aren't an issue either way. Main reason I'm rebuilding is compression was low-ish and the classic "while I'm in there" thing. Plus, the engine is leaky, 40 years old, and has 148K on it. I either do the bottom along with the top end now or wish I had.

Much less true than it used to be. About 20 years ago, it was pretty much unheard of to have to line-bore a Type IV case. When my motor was built, it needed it due to improper crank endplay. It was still quite uncommon at that point, which was about 1995 or so.

While it certainly isn't to the "just do them all" like the Type I cases were, it is certainly a lot more common now than it had been. Someone who goes through a lot of them would know better than I, but I suspect something like 10% are starting to need line-boring?

--DD

Dave,
Most of the cases that have been sent to me line bore in the past couple of years have mainly had an issue with the Number 2 (split) bearing bore. The rest of the case has been fairly good, the Number 2 (split) bearing bore has been the one that is out of the factory wear tolerance. We just recently did 2 Type IVs for 914s that were plus .05 MM on the main bearing bores and std on the crankshaft. Every set of Mahle bearings that we recieved from the current lot were unusable due to variations in the actual thickness of the Number 2 (split) bearing and my supplier told me that they had actually pulled all their stock off the shelf. The Number 2 (split) bearings were inconsistent on both wall thickness and concentricity in the current batch.

I've yet to see a type IV 914 case that had excessive thrust wear. They are a good case.
John

Bearings of all sizes are available. They were missing a couple of years ago but now they made a new batch. I bought an extra set, oversized, just in case.
Measure your case well before ordering. The thing about lot aligning the case is an urban legend and there's nothing wrong with align boring.
I suggest you buy bearings after you measure the case and crank and bore the case to the exact size of the bearings you got in hand. This is important in order to overcome variations in actual bearing measurments.
Most of all, good luck and have fun.

And I thought that I got screwed when George charged me $200 for OEM 2 years ago

You did! I bought a set of STD for $55.

They look really good sitting on the shelf.

I do have a bore gauge, so I can at least torque the case back together and check all the main saddles.

I'm at work at the moment, but will look for the specs in the haynes manual when I get home this evening. Feel free to pass along if you know off the top of your head what the measurements are I'm looking for or if you know where to find them.