Minnesota Focus Owners Club

I was driving my contour home from work today when on the entrance ramp i hatched the motor. I threw a chunk of the connecting rod right through the oil pan and part of the piston too. Of course this would be no good without a picture, so here it is:



They are organized there in where I think they came from. I picked these pieces up off the entrance ramp while I was waiting for a lift. The left side is piston remains from that number 1 cylinder. The top is the chunk of connecting rod, the right side is the remains of the rod bearings, and the bottom are pieces of the oil pan that it blew out. Sooo it's going to be a good chunk of change before this thing is back on the road.

Nils you better be up for another engine swap JK but I'm going to be looking at Steve getting me a Brand spankin new shortblock to drop in there.

a 3L swap in those things is sweet i would think hard about it.

why did this occur?

soul_hammer wrote:a 3L swap in those things is sweet i would think hard about it.

This was a mild built 3L already.

Fuckin A man. You know I'll be there to help. I was NOT expecting it to be a failure in your lower end Uber ghey. You think the heads are ok???

Ouch, I hate to say it but when you fired it up at the end of the meet I thought I heard rod bearing clatter. No one else seemed to have heard it but it looks like I was right.

Any idea what you're going to do now?

Why not fully build the bottom end this time? And could you stuff a 3.5 in there, or are those too different?

zurno wrote:Why not fully build the bottom end this time? And could you stuff a 3.5 in there, or are those too different?

Those are different. They don't share as much in common with the 2.5 and they aren't really worth the trouble for mild gains. I don't really plan on building the bottom end, I don't plan on ever boosting the car that much that I would actually need it.

FORDSVTPARTS wrote:Ouch, I hate to say it but when you fired it up at the end of the meet I thought I heard rod bearing clatter. No one else seemed to have heard it but it looks like I was right.

Any idea what you're going to do now?

Man I've been asking everyone what they thought it sounded like but no one could offer much help. And it had been making that noise since I dropped it in. I may be coming out there and looking into a new shortblock steve Think my block would be adequate for a core? It only has a small hole in the pan

Deagle50ae wrote:why did this occur?

Not sure I guess the used block I got could have been junk? I'm not sure if it was a wrist pin in that piston or what? I guess I will know more when I tear into it.

I'm definitely hoping the heads are still ok, as they were the expensive part in the first place. The block itself wasn't that spendy.

Pappy wrote:

soul_hammer wrote:a 3L swap in those things is sweet i would think hard about it.

This was a mild built 3L already.

Fuckin A man. You know I'll be there to help. I was NOT expecting it to be a failure in your lower end Uber ghey. You think the heads are ok???

on second though I know at least the rear head is okay, This was only one cylinder and it was over pretty quickly (so keep your fingers crossed on the front head), just a little bit of rattling, some smoke and I shut the car off and coasted to the side of the entrance ramp... Rented a tow dolly for 52 bucks and had it home in 2 hours.

It was quick while it lasted though right nils?

I can do a Taurus shortblock for $1311.00 plus a $500.00 core and yours is fine as a core.

I wish I would have said something before, I knew it was a rod noise as soon as I heard it. I kind of forgot about it after the fact though.

The hollow rattle at startup is a dead give away, one of the other symptoms can be a rattle when you rev it a bit and let off. If you get a rattle as the revs drop it's probably rod noise.

The good news is I think yours was probably just bad when you got it and not really something that will be common with those engines.

How long ago did you get it and where did you get it? Check the top of the piston (if anythings left) for dents from the valves.

FORDSVTPARTS wrote:I can do a Taurus shortblock for $1311.00 plus a $500.00 core and yours is fine as a core.

I wish I would have said something before, I knew it was a rod noise as soon as I heard it. I kind of forgot about it after the fact though.

The hollow rattle at startup is a dead give away, one of the other symptoms can be a rattle when you rev it a bit and let off. If you get a rattle as the revs drop it's probably rod noise.

The good news is I think yours was probably just bad when you got it and not really something that will be common with those engines.

How long ago did you get it and where did you get it? Check the top of the piston (if anythings left) for dents from the valves.

Thats cool, what does the shortblock include? Oil pump? Pan? Pickup? or is it just block, pistons, rods, and crank? And is that brand new or reconditioned?

Yeah I had that hollow rattle but it went away when the car was warming up.... It came back after it was warm completely though, every time. I couldn't figure out what it was and Ford was going to charge me a couple hundred bucks to determine whether it was upper or lower end without actually tearing anything apart.

I got it from a member on the Contour Forum who said it had 15k miles on it and that he never had any problems with it. I will try and drop the pan and find the rest of the piston tonight. Then I have to wait til after this weekend to really start tearing it apart because then I'll be able to get it back in the garage.

I could always go this route http://www.contour.org/ceg-vb/showthread.php?t=13889

Redlineracer12 wrote:

Pappy wrote:

soul_hammer wrote:a 3L swap in those things is sweet i would think hard about it.

This was a mild built 3L already.

Fuckin A man. You know I'll be there to help. I was NOT expecting it to be a failure in your lower end Uber ghey. You think the heads are ok???

on second though I know at least the rear head is okay, This was only one cylinder and it was over pretty quickly (so keep your fingers crossed on the front head), just a little bit of rattling, some smoke and I shut the car off and coasted to the side of the entrance ramp... Rented a tow dolly for 52 bucks and had it home in 2 hours.

It was quick while it lasted though right nils?

Well that's good, that at least one head is for sure good. Hopefully your other will be also.

The car was PISS FAST. You walked away from me like I was standing still

Call me if you want help, I'll be around.

If the block is still good, I'd say take it to a machine shop, have them test it out, and clean it up, and re-build it, B & A does great work ask Rod and Davis.

- Josh

Pappy wrote: Well that's good, that at least one head is for sure good. Hopefully your other will be also.

You're telling me... I will let you know if I need any help. Do you know anyone who would borrow me an engine hoist for a couple weeks? I'd be willing to give them a few bucks for the trouble. I don't need it right now but I suppose I can look at pulling this one about a week from now.

umdivx wrote:If the block is still good, I'd say take it to a machine shop, have them test it out, and clean it up, and re-build it, B & A does great work ask Rod and Davis.

Yeah I suppose that's still a possibility, I didn't lose any antifreeze so I'm assuming the only damage that could be done to the block is maybe some scoring on the cylinder walls and I could have damaged the crank. But to tell you the truth I don't REALLY know how many miles are on this engine anyways or how good the compression in the rest of the cylinders is, I'm going by some guys word. I still like the idea of brand new and returning this junk one as a core.

DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN!!!!!!

They wanted a couple hundred to diagnose it? I knew it was a rod knock from hearing it start once. It's not always a disaster like this one was.

Odds are the failure was a rod bearing possibly from lack of oil or severe overrev, a rod bearing can go quite a while like that (unless you're racing punks in blue Foci)

I would bet his block is toast, when a rod lets go like that it slams around in there and I've seen large chunks of cylinder wall get knocked out that way.

The shortblock is reman and does not include an oil pump, just a basic shortblock.

Did that motor have Taurus heads or SVT heads?