Christine has reared her ugly head...thrust bearing wiped

GSTOY

Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2008
Sorry for the length of the post...

Well last weekend I thought I'd give the tranny another looksy to see why it wouldn't shift out of first until you reached 25mph, and when it did, it hit super hard, to the point it would actuate the seatbelt tensionors.

After talking to a number of people, the conclusion was that the second inner valve piece where the TV cable attaches to was stuck inside the valve body. Now mind you that poor "Christine" as I'm calling her sat for 7 long years and I bought this GN non-running, so I knew I'd be in store for all sorts of issues, but I love a challenge...LOL Anyhow, I pull the pan and pull out the first part of the TV valve, only to find out that the second inner piece is moving freely..their goes that idea. Anyhow, the presistant person that I am after reading my 200-4R book, said it had to be in the valve body. Now months ago, I did install the Art Carr 200-4R shift kit, and followed it to the letter...even took pictures just to make sure I had a before and after..God what would we do before digital camera's :confused: But I was convinced, so I went ahead and took out the valve body so that I could look once more, but without tranny fluid leaking in my eye googles.

I one by one started to look at all the valves in the VB and lone and behold I found one that was stuck and had no spring...previous owner said it had a shift kit...whatever. After cleaning the valve and finding a spring, I buttoned it all togther and prayed that it solved the problem. YES!!! that fixed it, so I went out to my favorite county side road to make sure everything was working :biggrin: :biggrin: and some white ricer pulls along and wants to play...My very first encounter since getting this car running. My heart begins racing, we will finally see what she's made of.

I don't know why, but these kids don't ever want to go from a stop, it's always on a roll, so I go down to first, and start braking to build up some boost 2...3...4...5 psi and climbing, the rears can't hold back much more, then he takes off....brake off, rear end sqwats and away we go...this was too easy, welcome to getting your butt handed to you by a GN :biggrin: It was no match..I barely hit third and I was so far ahead, I shut it down, he comes again, same thing, with the same results..by now I'm just in heaven until I start to pull away after he turned off in shame, and hear something knocking :mad: Now what...At least it isn't a head gasket this time, so I baby her home and shut it off.

Fast forward to this weekend. Here's the aftermath, a wiped thrust bearing @*^!)&$#^&!!!!

I can't catch a break. Engine has 110K and I can guarentee the previous owner should have never owned this car. Found a receipt showing him complaining the engine was making a ticking sound. Mechanics reply..check your oil, it was down 3 quarts, so I'm sure that didn't help. Since their has been alot of talk about wiped thrust bearings, and what causes it, maybe I'm backwards, but if a torque converter balloons, and pushes the crank forward, would it be more likely to see bearing damage on the snout side of the crank, instead of the flywheel side?

Q #1. Well the engine is going to need to be rebuilt any which way you slice it. Is the crank salvageable by looking at the pics? It's pretty grooved on the face of the thrust bearing. If not, where can I get another crank?

Q #2. Does anyone know of a good engine machinist in the Oklahoma City area, or in Kansas or Dallas Ft. Worth?

Thanks for any leads..
Steve
 

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It's a little further than dfw but Ledford's perfomance in waco does good work. Just make sure to talk to Vinner. 1-254-756-3982 Gary's the owner but he's a bit of an ass. Vinner is one of the best machinest I've met unless you're willing to pay Ollie at rhere and morrison in Arlington
 
Eric Ruge at Ruge Automotive in Eureka, KS...Just outside of Wichita...He knows Buicks...
 
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