It's been a while but i finally got my ass into gear and stripped down my A14 thats been sitting in the shed for ages. I discovered that No' 3 bearing has cooked itself, as soon as i took the sump off i noticed that it was dry with no oil on the bearing cradle at all, 'dry as a nuns nasty' as they say!

Does this mean that there is a problem with the oil gallery? any other reasons this could happen? engine was rebuilt no that long ago, but it was my turbo engine.

any help would be appreiciated!

Probably a question for someone like Ernie.

But i`ll have a guess, I`ll presume you mean the No. 3 Main bearing?
I believe this journal feed both No 2 and No 3 big end bearings. Because of this, it usually is the first to go thirsty if there is any temporary supply issue.
Is it posable the engine may have suffered oil surge?

Yeah sorry it is No 3 main bearing!

The bearing is mutilated! it litrally paper thin!

I had an engine do the exact same thing a couple of years ago(it was an A12) i had some pics of the bearings from that engine on here somewhere!

Im going a boosted application on this engine again so i want this problem to be solved.

where to start, could be a number of things, bent crank/clearance problem/thrust problem being the thrust bearing(heavy clutch)/block tunnels warpage/oil supply the list goes on.

I agree - there's too many possible causes to have a chance to diagnose it 100% for certain over the net. In this case, you're going to have to get in touch with a decent engine reconditioner, and let them inspect the lot.

So I'll ask a couple of questions, and any comments I'll make afterward will still only be guesses (educated guesses maybe, maybe not)

What were the bearing clearances when it was last re-built or put together? (all of them, rod, main, and even for the bearings that are still ok, just to get a clearer picture)

Any chance of some pictures of the bearings in question?

What oil pressure did it have at idle, and above 2500rpm or so (i.e. what was the max oilpressure), and what oil were you running (I'm asking about the viscosity, not the brand of oil in this case).

If the crank can be removed, can you look at each oil passage in the crank, and try shining light through each one. If there is debris in it, clean it out (collect it to get a look at what type of metal it is). Obviously there's likely to be some bearing material in there, but thhere is the off chance that there might be swarf left in there if the crank was re-ground the last time it was recoed.

It'd also be good to look at the other bearings - mark or separate them so you know which main cap or rod each one comes from. Don't just look at the bearing surfaces - flip each shell over and look at the back of them. If any of the other bearings have blue-ish marks (heat related discolouration, could also be a brownish colour - brown is high-ish temps, blue is higher temps than brown) - anyway if other bearings show such discolouration, it's likely that either the bearings were too 'tight' and didn't have enough clearance, or if there was oil starvation (though generally starvation will affect more than one bearing).

If the rod bearings, esp the upper halves have wear in the centre, it can be a sign of detonation that wasn't totally audible (and generally one cylinder will start detonating just before the rest, and which cylinder that is differs from engien to engine..)

You'd probably also want to look at all the upper main bearings, sometimes the oil hole in them doesn't perfectly line up with the oil passage in the engine main webbing/cradle where the bearing sits in. This can vary from engine to engine, but does happen from time to time. in some motors, there's different main bearings for different locations, or changes to the oil drillings from early to late model engines of the same type, so a mismatch can occur, and the solution is to check them carefully, and if hte new one is faulty, replace it, or if it's all that is available, it can carefully be drilled to open up the oil passage/supply

What else? You can sometimes fine cracks or pinholes in the oil pump pickup which can suck air and aerate the oil and compromise the oil supply - sometimes it can affect one bearing before the rest, but you'd tend to still find _some_ damage or signs of oil starvation on the others.

i do apoligise! its not the main bearing its No 3 conrod bearing, and to think about it it only happened after i put a seccond hand oil pump on the engine.

I will definatly put up some pics of the bearing in question and the others.

The other bearings seem to have plenty of oil lubricating them, some of them do seem to have some wear, seems strange the engine wouldn't be more than 1000k's old.

just some pics of the bearing in question-










All the other bearings seem to be fine, there is slight wear nothing out of the ordinary.

mmm not pretty,only damage one half,no way
is that the 2 bearing shells out of no3
rod.which 1 was rod end,
which one was cap end.
is the crank & rod stuffed (must be).