My son's engine seized on him while he was at college. I brought it home and pulled it out today. It would appear the crank slid forward and the bearing fried.

My question is: does anyone know what would cause this? And idea if this block or crank is salvageable?






You can see in the pictures how the crank ran into the block and wore a pretty bad groove. Same with the bearing blocks.

The engine had 6000 miles since the rebuild. An engine shop assembled the block.

Thanks,
Mike

 

Well, it wasn't from a lack of oil. If lack of oil was the cause those journals would be blue/black. Are the thrust washers still in place? Wonder if they are even there.
Hard to say cause at this point. It could be anywhere from poor quality or incorrect parts, poor machining, or poor assembly.
How detailed is your work order? How long since the work was done?

 

All of the parts were from LC Engineering. The thrust washers were in the bottom of the oil pan and badly bent up. The #2 cylinder rod bearing had heat marks under the bearings. It was the only one that looked like it was not getting enough oil.

 

My guess is the thrust washers fell out, then everything went to hell. The bearing at #2 might have shifted enough to block the oil hole. Lack of oil didn’t start this failure. If oil was the root cause you’d see significant discoloration at all the journals.

properly sized and installed thrust washers don’t simply fall out.

 

this is what the thrust washers looked like.

 

I’ve seen numerous destroyed Toyota engines, including 22R#’s. Destroyed from no oil in the engine, engines overheated to the point where the pistons seized in the cylinders, holes blown out the side of the block from ingesting water; and none of them dropped their thrust washers. You need to have a chat with the rebuilder. And start documenting, both detailed text and photos.

edit: sorry, I didn’t address one of your questions. What you can save will depend on any machining already done, along with any machining needed to correct this issue. The crankshaft will need to be turned/or replaced . The connecting rods could have survived. Hopefully the metal in the oil didn’t hurt the piston cylinder walls.
it’ll need a pretty thorough tear down to assess the engine, along with cleaning everything to remove debris.

if you need counseling on how to deal with the rebuilder than send me a pm.