Pigs flew this morning.... The 2.2L rebuild extravaganza!

Welp, suffered a blown engine in my 91 ss. The story so far below is c/p'd from my local board so bear with me!

 

12/22/08

 

Well pigs flew this morning and I drove the lgt to work this morning in this mucky crap. Was out in the s.s having fun last night with Church and was doing some 50mph slides and upward spiraling pigtails (reference superbad), and top spins... Had checked my oil 2 days ago and it was fine. Somehow lost some oil, starved her for a little too long doing spins heard a little rapping and blew #2 rod bearing . Drove her over 60mph the whole way home (about 30 miles) backed her in the garage and shut her down. Stayed in the garage for a lil while putting the front end back on the lgt so I could drive her to work today. So I'm probably gonna have to wait till after x-mas to pull the motor and get a rebuild going. Unsure if I'm gonna spend extra coin to build it up a lil bit seeing as how the body is getting toasted..... But I could always get a little L and do a swap with the 2.2t. Oh well just sharing the news with everyone. So be on the lookout for me now in the swp lgt wagon with a pirate octopus on the windshield, and a mario bros squid on the rear glass!

 

The car deff doesn't owe me anything. I've had it 7 months, put 15k on it, and have beat the hell out of it, many of you have seen it. Nothing has broke on the car, and I haven't put a dime into it besides oil changes. I just hit 197k on the ORIGINAL motor, and church beat the ever loving snot out of it for a long time before I ever got my hands on it. I'm sure it would have lasted for an indeffinite period of time if I hadn't done what I did last night. I'm just glad the block is intact.

 

I love the 1st gen body for sure.... But finding another one without the same problems mine has is going to be rather tough. Fixing the existing body is going to be a SERIOUS amount of work/money/time and I dunno if it's worth it.

 

12/24/08

 

Well.... I think I'm gonna just change out the rod and main bearings, do the hg's and assorted seals/gaskets. The truth of the matter is that I really only use the car as a dd and go out and play. Once spring/summer hits I will be rocking the wagon and the bike mostly. I might invest in another oil pan with baffles since it seems that my uh, extracurricular activites have a tendency to slosh my oil to one side. Obviously going to do the work myself with Justin, so no labor involved just parts. Unfortunately I had to do this right around x-mas, and while the state is dumping a crap ton of salt on the road for me to drive the battle wagon in!

 

 

1/6/09

 

Oh boy we have an update.... YAY!!!

 

 

Well, drove the car another 25 miles To Justins house the weekend after x-mas. Made it about a 1/4 miles away from his house and "rrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeechhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhhhhh clunk clunk clunk oh crap shut it down!" So we towed it the rest of the way (with justins t-leg), got her in the bay and pulled the motor. At the time I assumed the bearing finally gave out and had spun. Last night my suspicions were confirmed when we took off the heads and split the block (this is tricky if it's the first time you've done this ), to find the #2 rod bearing spun. . I'm not yet sure if the crank is salvagable, it will be sent to a trusted machine shop tomorrow to be scoped out. It looks worse than it is I think. It seems that there is alot of melted babbit on the crank from the bearing. The good news.... you really, I mean REALLY wouldn't be able to guess the mileage of this engine if you came and examined the parts. Remember, there is nearly 200k on this motor, with a great deal of it's life being hard. The cylinder walls... still crosshatched. The cylinder rings...... nearly perfect. The rest of the rod and main bearings/journals.....No sign of wear patterns that you see on most motors with any age on them. Valves/heads.....nearly no carbon buildup on the valves or the valve seats. Front and rear main seals...intact and not leaking. I tell you the thing is pretty imaculate. The only issue we really ran into was removing the from crank sproket *gulp*. I had read tales of the dreaded 2.2L crank pulley wobble, and mine had a slight one from the get-go. The crank key didn't fail completely, however just mushroomed the end of the key, making it VERY hard to remove the front sproket. A series of prybars, a little patience, and a hammer came into play for this one. The key remained intact, however the sproket didn't survive the onslaught, so another one of those will need to be sourced.

 

Splitting the block was fun. I actually invented a new tool to perform the task, since we didn't have the approved subaru block splitting tool! My tool consists of: 2 pieces of cut 2x4, a small length of chain with a hook, and a oem subaru screw jack! I have a pic of the tool in use for your enjoyment, I could demo it anytime for anyone interested!

 

 

Sorry for the lengthy post. Below are a few crappy cell phone pics. I will be bringing my real camera over next time to snap some better pics. Here is a pic of the rod journal that had the spun bearing, and the block splitting tool being used!

 

 

http://i459.photobucket.com/albums/qq319/Dusty_B_leggygt/splittool.jpg

http://i459.photobucket.com/albums/qq319/Dusty_B_leggygt/crank1.jpg

How much of a pain in the ass is it to do a rebuild on a 2.2L? This might become a summer project for me soon.

All in all it's not so bad so far. Like I mentioned the splitting of the block just took a couple min to figure out. I've pulled subie motors and stuff in the past, replaced pistons (which you don't need to split the block for), just never had to do anything with the lower end. The floating wrist pins were pretty well stuck in my motor, so I ended up splitting the block just enough to get a rachet in there to disconnect the #2 and #4 rods from the crank.

subscribed. Good luck with this. Take it slow! Ive had my honda head off twice in a week because I "forgot" things, but you're better off then me with assistance form your friend.

I'll subscribe, also. Get that camera!

I'll do my best to keep this updated every couple of days. My buddy forgot the crank at his house today so I will hopefully be sending that out tomorrow to get looked at. If the crank is no good I may consider going with the 2.5l crank and eagle rods and doing the 2.3l stroker.

Crank got sent out yesterday (j&r machine. putnam, ct). Jon at j&r said they wouldn't even be able to look at the crank/start work on it till early this coming week.

I just spun a rod bearing on my 99 LGT and i know EXACTLY the sound you are referring too. I'm not rebuilding mine thought, i convinced the man i bought it from to do all the work for me FOR $500!!! I would have done it myself but being a student and already having an apartment scattered with car parts i didnt think my roomates would be too happy about me doing the rebuild. plus i dont have the space, my closet is currently occupied by a th350 and a stripped 4.3 . I'm getting mine back today cant wait to go for a cruise and break her in. Best of luck with your rebuild!!!

yeah my 94 GT blew the rod bearings and I could not find another engine the oil pan was full of bearing material!!! and you don't even want to know how it sounded!! it wasen't oil cause evin though the bearings spun or blew out the oil was full and clear as I had just changed it 3 days before!!! this car has been a royal pain in the ass!! the 22T showed no signs of going at all (well almost then 2 towns over it was done) so I picked up a EJ20G (the solid deck one) from a japanese engine place for $700.00 and swapped that in it feels more solid than the last one for sure!! but every 2-7 days something major happens to it that makes it immoble!!!!!!! so the 22T is still rebuildable but it might cost too much to rebuild as it has 250,000 k's on it!! so lets hope I can get all these bugs out!!!

 

good luck, and dot your i's and cross your t's cause these things are very touchey!

 

lates Jesse