No, but thanks for the reminder.
I've come to the conclusion that I'm not going to do a complete tear down - yet. My reasoning is as follows:
1) All of the metal found was contained in the factory oil filter. My oil pan was super clean.
2) My flickering oil pressure light at hot idle is (deduced from quite a bit of surfing) likely from a failing AOS. My oil cap was difficult to remove, there was huge suction at the oil filler tube with the cap off, and I pulled the top tube of the AOS and it's very oily. It did
not produce clouds of smoke, nor did it run lousy with the oil cap removed.
During my period of silence I purchased an LN IMS tool set from a fellow inmate and cleaned up all the parts I've thus far removed. Actually I suckered my youngest kid into doing most of it. He over achieved in most cases. For example, my shift cable heat shield looks show car ready. I said "son this isn't a show car, it's a daily driver" then he proceeded to make my transmission mounts just as clean. Damn kids.
This past Saturday I cleaned the inside of the transmission bell housing, detail stripped all of the clutch fork components and then did a half ass job of cleaning the rest of the transmission. Call it "survivor" grade cleaning. Your hands will be clean after handling it but I wouldn't serve Kobe beef on it.
I'm actually planning on replacing everything in this picture. There is clear wear on most components, and of course the throw out bearing is a "don't be a fool, as long as you're in there..." part. I have a short list of parts to order from Pelican that will upgrade the clutch lever to the later non-squeaky type.
On the morning I did the clean up I had actually gone out to the garage to pull the flywheel then realized I didn't have the required T55 torx bit. It was dumping rain at the time, my woman was gone with the Touareg and I didn't feel like suiting up on the bike for the task. Glad I passed too, because we had a tornado (actually a water spout) not three miles from my place. The path of devastation included a knocked over lawn chair. Whew! Dodged it.
That evening I picked up a T55 and proceeded to ruin it without breaking a single flywheel bolt loose. The next morning I picked up a (hopefully) more substantial bit and a set of hardened L wrenches with torx ends on them. With luck they'll last long enough to get all six bolts removed.
After that I whip out the IMS removal tool and make that happen.
As I said earlier, I'm not going to do a complete tear down
yet. I
do have to find out where the metal came from and determine my level of risk from there. If my IMS is clean then the next likely source of metal would seem to be cam chain tensioners.
Before I blindly order all three tensioners (they don't exactly come in cereal boxes) I'm going to pull them and inspect. Prior to me parking the car I was getting a very short bit of rattle on cold start and that is also reported to be a tensioner issue.
Lastly, I've made a decision regarding replacement IMS. I'm absolutely going to pull the existing bearing and use it as a paper weight. After doing some research on the options I decided to to the EPS roller bearing.
Logic is as follows (and I welcome dissent, as I've not purchased the bearing yet):
My car is a double row bearing. Thus, the LN/F6 IMS "Solution" is not an option for me. I don't see where there is any talk of creating a forced oil plain bearing replacement for the double row version. Even if there were discussion there isn't one on the market, and I don't want to have my car sticking it's ass in the air for any longer than is absolutely required.
I asked EPS for some statistics and they responded that they have put out 800 bearings in the past two years with zero failures. If anyone knows differently I'd like to hear about it.
Simply put, I know that a plain bearing offers the best support of a spinning shaft. The spinning component literally hydroplanes on a layer of oil, the contact patch is pretty damn good and there is zero metal to metal contact when running. In contrast, a ball bearing has an almost infinitely small contact patch and it's on one ball at a time as the bearing spins (discounting harmonics, which I know isn't realistic but stick with me here).
Again, there's no plain bearing option for my double row car currently on the market. A roller bearing offers a way larger contact patch than a ball bearing, so it seems to me that it is at least a lower risk option than the stock bearing set up. How's that for carefully worded?
There's more at play here. In reading Mr Raby's posts he is rightfully quite protective of his development of a one and done solution. Prior to installation he wants engines qualified to see if they are even worth doing. I was unable to test for cam deviations prior to parking my car. For that matter I was unable to perform a leak down test too, but I'm ordering the equipment to do so right now. But what there
was, was metal in the filter. Well under .25cc. No chunks, just super tiny stuff.
I've read in his posts and I believe his statement has been along the lines that if there was metal he'd rather you install a competitors product and then report your long term results.
Am I pacing back and forth a bit? Hell yes. Without knowing for sure where the metal came from I'd be a fool to button it back up and drive. But if it's tensioners and AOS, and my current IMS runs smooth then I'd be in for a ton of work (100% dissassembly of my engine) to find out that maybe my car was okay.
The flickering oil light makes hot stuff come up in the back of my throat. I really hope it's the AOS and not that my main bearings are toast. After getting the car running I'll also be hooking up a test gauge to check what my oil pressure really is. Perhaps a gooey pressure switch or faulty pressure relief valve is at play.
Had I really planned this out in advance I would have obtained cable/software and checked for cam deviations. I would have done that oil pressure check and I would have done a leak down test. I didn't.
What I'm looking at from here is about $1000 worth of parts to set the wheels back on the ground and run it.
Depending on what I learn after that I'll either be back in, or I'll have a car I can drive for a while. If it's the latter then my plan is to find a core 3.2 (or 996 engine) and do a 100% tear down/rebuild on it and have it ready to go for chapter 2.