Been a hot minute Rebuilt my engine my 95 is alive again

[Corse]

I figured I'd share my experience in case any other owners go through the same.

My first gen suffered oil starvation after an autocross event in June, 2020. At some point in the car's life, someone had replaced the oil pan gasket with rtv and then torqued it down to metal to metal. This, in the end, caused a massive blockage of the pickup tube I wasn't aware of upon buying the car. On an inspection at the shop, the owner commented, "That's odd, it looks like you either don't have a gasket or the gasket is really thin."

The car needed a lot of work. I had replaced ALL of the sensors, even though many were fine, just to get the car to a point that I knew it was good for a while and was in a place that was in the shape it deserved. The car still had some odd issues with cold starts sometimes, though after a reset cycle, it was better when the ECU picked it up.

Queue to autocross. Ran great, had fun, drove it to the mountain for the race, flogged it, drove it back. On the way back, 2 miles from home, it started to stall. It was odd, it was like it completely lost fuel. If I got back into the throttle, it would pick up again. No noises at the time, just the weird stalling.

The next day, I picked the car up from storage to go for a little scoot and suddenly I heard it. *knock, knock, knock* It was very distinct, but light, not incredibly loud, but it was there.

I drove it down to my friend's shop that was a few blocks away and he confirmed my suspicions, "Could be a lifter, could be the start of rod knock, but I wouldn't drive it any further."

We discussed it and decided to leave the car at the shop, and start a tear down.

After pulling the oil pan, we found this.


On top of the snakes of RTV/Silicon we found, was lots and lots of glitter.
Pulled the timing cover, and the oil pump housing was chewed up from oil starvation.

The lifters showed signs of getting hot, but hadn't failed yet, and the cam was fine, as were the journals, thankfully.



Next were the inspection of the rod bearings, which were also unhappy. At first, I had only pulled the caps and lower portions, which also looked hot, and not great, but not horrific.


Later on in disassembly came the upper portions of the rod bearings and then the issue was clear as day. Yep, these rod bearings were toast, and through multiple layers of metal, some down to the copper. Not good.


The good news? I had caught this in time not to have any form of catastrophic damage.

[Old School]

The good news? I had caught this in time not to have any form of catastrophic damage.

This is absolutely true!

[Corse]

The next part of the journey, rebuilding.

First thing was first, inspecting to see exactly what kinds of other issues lurked. One of those things, was the intake manifold gasket, which had a MASSIVE leak because whomever had replaced it last, had crunched it in half and it wasn't all the way torqued down. Couldn't be seen with the intake manifold in place, but when I took it off, yowza.


Bought an entire gasket kit from Viper Specialty Performance, new rod bearings, new arp hardware, and a bunch of parts. Sent the heads off for machining and refresh.

The new gaskets from cometic don't come with the pins for the intake manifold gasket, and the old ones were broken and barely working, so I designed some new ones in cad and printed them at home.





Used the old gasket for mockup


delicious.

[Corse]

6 months of waiting on parts, and years of neglect from previous ownership, this engine needed cleanup, bad.
Let the assembly begin.
Lots of carbon buildup, which I carefully removed as much as I could and cleaned it up prior to reassembly. Old gaskets had to come off.






Cleaned the holy hell out of the pan, the windage tray, scrubbed it down with a steel brush and ran it through a parts washer.




Months of waiting on parts, even with the car cover on, she needs a bath.


Almost there.


3d printed some new wire routing clips since the old ones were broken, or missing, and not the right diameter for the new wires.

[Corse]

New MLS gaskets for the head and exhaust. (and a new oem oil filter because ew fram)


All back together, needs wire routing and a battery charge.


And at last, the car is alive and home.

[Corse]

Some lessons learned:

- The early v10 engines are pretty easy to work on. Although admittedly the front portion of the engine is the biggest PITA. Take your time, take it easy, do it right, be meticulous. Thankfully the pushrod engines aren't as hard as I figured it would be to work on.
- Getting parts is a PITA for the first gens now. Search high and low, contact machine shops that work on them, see if they have spares. My most difficult part to find was a new oil pump and housing for it.
- Mark everything. One thing I didn't realize till they were under the car were the shims for the steering rack. I now do not know exactly what order they were in and will need to take it in for an alignment. Not a huge deal, but could have been avoided. The steering rack being moved out of the way makes it able to get the pulley off and work on it.
- Thankfully, all the hardware is pretty standard sizes, and can easily be replaced and found at most hardware stores for the regular bolts and sizes.
- When taking off the lifters, make sure you do NOT forget the bolts that hold the guides for the lifters. I ended up putting them in a separate bag and 2 of them dropped, never to be seen and are somewhere in the engine bay (not in the engine, but I suspect they fell inside the sills for the exhaust, that's the direction they went). Use a magnet to take them out. Space is tight, I got all but 2 lol.
- Do not put the rockers loosely in the bags with the bolts. There are markings on the underside for direction for oil flow. If you loosely put them in the bag there's a chance they may rotate loosely. I noticed this during assembly and went back to correct all of mine just to be safe. If you do, just remember to double check that orientation when assembly as they'll go both ways.

[jpmst3]

Congrats!

Nice work, glad you get 'er back on the road!
I am sure the process was a wonderful learning experience.

[Corse]

Congrats!

Nice work, glad you get 'er back on the road!
I am sure the process was a wonderful learning experience.

Lots of stuff to learn. It's my first pushrod engine rebuild. I'm used to working on european cars, so shim over or under bucket solid lifters on those types of applications. Honestly I kind of like the simplicity of the pushrod engine. Definitely has different quirks and things to learn. But I like how accessible and easy it is to work on by comparison. I understand why people enjoy working on these cars themselves.

[98RedGTS]

Love seeing cars make it to the hands of people that get them back together right and will love the car.

Couple of items:
- Is that a crack in the oil pan? Looks like it goes all the way through (picture below). How did you fix that? Replace or weld up?
- The intake manifold gasket pins. You should sell those or work with a viper vendor (JonB for instance) to sell those. Mine broke as well when I was changing my gaskets recently and would have loved to have a set of them with my new gaskets. I wound up using a dab or RTV to keep things in place but would have MUCH preferred this.

[Corse]

Love seeing cars make it to the hands of people that get them back together right and will love the car.

Couple of items:
- Is that a crack in the oil pan? Looks like it goes all the way through (picture below). How did you fix that? Replace or weld up?
- The intake manifold gasket pins. You should sell those or work with a viper vendor (JonB for instance) to sell those. Mine broke as well when I was changing my gaskets recently and would have loved to have a set of them with my new gaskets. I wound up using a dab or RTV to keep things in place but would have MUCH preferred this.

No cracks in the oil pan, the weird lines and stuff that kind of look that way are casting lines. They caught me off guard as well.
It was a quick job in cad so I'm not too worried about selling them. But if people wanna print them, they are FREE to download and print
https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/vari...sket-pin-viper

[njsteve]

Nice job on the rebuild! This is exactly the stuff I love to do. I recently retired and I am running out of stuff to rebuild already! Just did the sparkplugs in my wife's Charger last week. Already did tune ups on all the kid's cars (Camaro and Impala SS). I love engine rebuilding. Very satisfying when it's all done and back together.

Did you do the entire rebuild with the engine block still in the chassis?

Congrats on the successful overhaul! (and catching it just in time). :-)

[Corse]

Nice job on the rebuild! This is exactly the stuff I love to do. I recently retired and I am running out of stuff to rebuild already! Just did the sparkplugs in my wife's Charger last week. Already did tune ups on all the kid's cars (Camaro and Impala SS). I love engine rebuilding. Very satisfying when it's all done and back together.

Did you do the entire rebuild with the engine block still in the chassis?

Congrats on the successful overhaul! (and catching it just in time). :-)

I did not remove the block, correct. The block itself was fine and didn't need any work, so I left the block in and did everything else outside.

[njsteve]

I guess the chassis makes a great engine stand in and of itself once the other stuff is moved out of the way. :-)

What method did you use to get the upper halves of the new main bearings into place with the crank still in the block?

[Old School]

What method did you use to get the upper halves of the new main bearings into place with the crank still in the block?

Bearings, both rod and main, are manufactured such that they are a bit wider at the parting line. When you install them they get squeezed down to final shape and friction will just hold them in place.

[GTS Dean]

Upper bearing halves can usually be "rolled into place" by loosening a couple of main bearing saddles enough to slide new ones into place where the caps are removed. Trans may have to be removed to get the rear upper in. Big trucks roll new bearings in during "in-frame" rebuild service.

[njsteve]

Yeah, I'm an old timer and I figured it was the roll-in method with the trusty old bent cotter pin in the oiling hole, employed to move it in to place as you roll the crank slowly.

I imagine the transmission had to come out, since the one piece rear main would not allow any measurable drop of the crank especially if the transmission is still bolted up.

[Corse]

Hey guys, to clarify, I left the mains alone, when I pulled the lowers they looked perfectly fine, no signs of hot wear. I replaced the rod bearings which was done with the block still in. Dean and njsteve are correct that the roll-in method could be done but the transmission would probably need to be removed. However, no mains replaced at this time as pulling them on an inspecting looked good.

[njsteve]

Thanks for the clarification. May I suggest once you get some miles on it, to do an oil analysis. I have done them for all of my cars (even my 1989 John Deere lawnmower!) and they have been invaluable.

It precisely predicted my bearings were going in my 1995 6.5 Diesel Suburban, allowing me to plan for the engine replacement on my schedule instead of having a catastrophic failure at a time of its choosing. When I autopsied the engine after I replaced it, I found that all the bearings were flaking due to a head gasket failure 10,000 miles earlier and the main webs were cracked (a common defect in the 6.5). I'll post the test sheets on my thread so you can see what they look like.

https://driveviper.com/forums/thread...d=1#post453486

[d124716]

Hey guys, to clarify, I left the mains alone, when I pulled the lowers they looked perfectly fine, no signs of hot wear. I replaced the rod bearings which was done with the block still in. Dean and njsteve are correct that the roll-in method could be done but the transmission would probably need to be removed. However, no mains replaced at this time as pulling them on an inspecting looked good.

Hello Corse, quick question for you: Did you reuse the original bolts/nuts on the connecting rod caps? Thanks!

[ACRSNK]

Love that Jalpa in the background!

[04BlackSRT10]

I, too, have been the recipient of incredible negligence/stupidity/whatever else you want to call it thanks to the previous owner. I bought my 2004 thinking it would be the most reliable car I've ever owned, given its simplicity compared to my previous European cars. So far I've had to replace the entire exhaust, radiator assembly, spark plug wires, battery, alternator, power-steering pump, the ENTIRE suspension, and tires. The car also needs a new diff thanks to metal chunks I found when I changed the fluid, has a leak from somewhere in the clutch system, and a minor oil leak. I've sunk about 10 grand into the car so far and the road still seems to stretch for eternity. The vast majority of the issues I've had to repair have been the result of ridiculous bubba engineering from the previous owner and crappy aftermarket parts he installed on the car. The dealership also massively misrepresented the car and had me believing they had refreshed it just before I bought it. That's on me, as I took their word for it and didn't get a PPI -- a mistake I'll never make again!

Despite all this, I still love my car and when it's finally put right it will be so rewarding to own and drive. This is my second Viper, and it's the only car I want to own indefinitely!