Might be shrapnel from the converter got somewhere it shouldn't be and upped the line pressure, don't mean lumps, just the particles might be enough to do it
One other thing, i've changed 100's of transmissions on heavy plant i know it's not quite the same but they all work on the same principle and there is not one manufacturer or reman company that will warranty a new or rebuilt tranny after a failure without the cooler has been renewed and the lines either steam cleaned out or renewed oh and the big expensive trannys have 100 micron filters fitted still no warranty.
If it were me i'd have the trans stripped and checked and cleaned out and renew the cooler and lines along with the converter, but i guess you knew that anyway
I have the trans pan off already and the fluid in there was super clean for the first time in years. However there was a small bit of swarf stuck to the filter in one tiny spot.
But that might be left over from the last disaster I had.
I will flush the whole thing through and I am fitting a new trans cooler anyway.
And by the way from experience on much bigger stuff i wouldn't touch a sprayed crank with a barge pole, and looking at the pics you posted of the thrust area there would have to be a lot of foreign metal added to get them anywhere near.
I have had cranks worse than that sprayed and turned back down, I have had journals welded and turned down on historic race cars, if you have some one who knows what they are doing it is not a drama, the thrust faces don't even need hardening as there is little to no load on them.
Just my opinion from experience Alex, albeit on bigger cranks, although i know huge ship cranks are repaired no worries. I guess it's all down to the knowledge of the people that do it.
I will have to hold back on buying ANYTHING until this problem is sorted Wil. Even braided fuel line - sorry.
If I can get this fixed then I can at least put the engine back together. But whether i will be able to find the money to get all the other little bits I need to get this car running remains to be seen.
There was no nasty chunks of metal in the engine oil that I could find. Bottom of the sump had a coating of what looked like bearing material but as the sump has not been off since new bearings were fitted some years ago now i did expect to see that sort of deposit just from running it in. How much I should have expected I did not know.
As for welding the crank I do know that a lot of stroker cranks are made in this fashion (welded and then offset ground) and they seem to be OK up to quite high HP levels. But as Alex says, under normal circumstances there should be no great load on the thrust surface.
All I need is to find a place within driving distance that can do this stuff. At one time Newcastle was full of heavy engineering places. It is all call centers and computer/satellite places now.
I have come up with two possible places I can call tomorrow. Fingers crossed they have the specialist gear to do this kind of welding.
all this is going to make me check my crank on the thrust area, my thrust bearing came off like this, is this what yours was like ? other than being broken ?
I took the crank to a place today and although they cannot do the repair themselves on site they said they send this sort of stuff out to someone. He could not say for sure if this place could do it either. He said it depends on what the crank is made of??? Err...Steel?
He wouldn't say who they send out to of course so I hope it is not the place I was at yesterday that has sold the equipment.
I have left it with them so they can make enquiries and get me a price if it can be done. Every time something goes wrong with this car it is like running in treacle.
Welding a crank is a whole different ball game to spraying.
Spraying is like the sparks coming off of a grinder the only difference is the sparks are the material you want whatever to be coated in, great for coatings but you're still relying on the sparks ability to stick to the parent metal it never actually becomes part of the parent like it does when welded, i've seen the stuff peel like tin foil.
Whatever repair you opt for is going to generate heat and all the problems that causes and i'd be very dubious of any company in the UK actually getting it right without a pile of extra machining on top of the repair bill.
Crankshaft repair or modification is best left to people who have actual experience on the crank in hand and preferably when there is no other choice.
IMHO the best thing to do is have another good crank balanced at least you start with a known quantity and you won't be throwing any money down the drain.
Tell me to shut up if you want, i don't mind but i have fitted more cranks than most and never had one fail yet
Actually Wil what you are saying is not a million miles from where my thinking is at. Find a good used 440 crank (if possible) and get it balanced.
I am just asking for a price and an idea of how successful the process might be. Then I can weigh up my options.
If I can get them to try it on a "If it goes pear shaped I owe you nothing but you don't owe me a crank either" basis then I would be happy with that. Not very confident they would go for that though.
Err...Steel?