Practical Engine Building: Installing Thrust Bearings
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Installing Thrust Bearings
06.13
| 00:00 | - We've already seen how to install the bearings into both the engine block as well as the conrod, but we also need to give some consideration to the thrust bearings in the engine. |
| 00:09 | Now there's generally two styles of thrust bearing that we'll be dealing with, where the thrust washers are separate, in this case we're going to have some thrust washers that look a little bit like this, and these will be fitted into both the engine block as well as the main bearing cap. |
| 00:27 | The other style of thrust bearing we may see is where the thrust washers are integral with the main bearing. |
| 00:34 | This is relatively straightforward for us because the thrust washers or thrust bearing assembly is installed when we install the main bearing into the engine block. |
| 00:44 | For this demonstration we'll have a look at fitting individual thrust washers into a Toyota 2JZ engine. |
| 00:50 | Now I've already got the crankshaft installed into the engine block, and I've just got two main bearing caps fitted at the moment so we can go through this demonstration. |
| 00:59 | Now what we're going to need to do is fit, first of all the upper thrust washers, and these are the parts of the thrust washer that assemble or fit into the upper side of the engine block. |
| 01:11 | Now when we take our thrust washers, we'll see that there's two sides to the thrust washer. |
| 01:16 | There's a flat side, and this needs to be installed towards the engine block. |
| 01:21 | The opposite side will have a couple of oil grooves and it's essential we get this around the right way. |
| 01:27 | If we install it the incorrect direction there's going to be no lubrication for the thrust surface on the crankshaft, and this can quickly destroy the crankshaft thrust surface. |
| 01:37 | So what we're going to do for this installation is use a moly assembly lube, just to give some protection during initial engine start up until oil pressure is achieved. |
| 01:48 | So I'm going to grab our moly assembly lubricant here, and what I'm going to do is just apply a thin coat of the assembly lube onto the surface of the thrust washer that will contact the crankshaft. |
| 02:03 | Once we've done this we can now slide the thrust washer into place. |
| 02:08 | So what I've done here is I've assembled the crankshaft and I've moved it all the way forward in the engine block. |
| 02:14 | What this has done is provided a large gap on the front half so this is the first part of the thrust washer I'm going to install. |
| 02:22 | What we want to do is simply locate the thrust washer into the block, you can align it with the crankshaft and then I can easily just slide the thrust washer down until it's in its correct location in the block. |
| 02:37 | Now that we've done this we need to install the opposite side but before we do this, what we're going to need to do is move the crankshaft to the rear of the engine block to make room to physically slide that thrust washer into place. |
| 02:51 | So we can easily do this just by using a pry bar, and what we want to do is just pry against the crankshaft and part of the block to move the crankshaft back. |
| 03:02 | We're now going to repeat the process with the other half of the thrust washer assembly. |
| 03:08 | It's worth noting here that in the 2JZ, the upper part of the thrust washer that I'm assembly at the moment has no location in the block, it'll just spin freely. |
| 03:18 | And the actual location of these thrust washers is achieved through the main bearing cap. |
| 03:26 | And what we can see on the main bearing cap is that there are a couple of locating grooves. |
| 03:30 | And these locating grooves align with the tangs or locating tangs on the other half of our thrust washers. |
| 03:40 | So now that we've got our two upper parts of our thrust washer assembly in place, we can fit the lower parts of the thrust washer assembly. |
| 03:48 | Now there's a couple of ways we can do this. |
| 03:50 | I find the easiest way is to locate the thrust washers onto the crankshaft first and then gently drop the main bearing cap into place. |
| 04:00 | Now again if we're using a moly lubricant like I am here, we'll find that this actually helps the situation because the thrust washer will tend to stick to the crankshaft. |
| 04:12 | This keeps it in the correct location and makes sure that it doesn't fall out as we are putting the main bearing cap into place. |
| 04:18 | So what I'm going to do now is just install the other two parts of the thrust washer. |
| 04:23 | Before we do this we want to make sure that the two thrust washers we've installed in the block already are flush, so they're not protruding up out of the block at all. |
| 04:33 | We've done our first lower thrust washer. |
| 04:36 | I'm just going to apply assembly lube to the second one. |
| 04:39 | And we'll drop that into place as well. |
| 04:45 | Now once we've got our lower thrust washers in place, we want to visually inspect and make sure that everything is sitting where we want it, then what we can do is simply drop our main bearing cap into place. |
| 04:59 | Now when we do this we do want to be careful that we don't upset or move those thrust washers and we also want to be very careful that the locating tangs on the thrust washers do slot nicely into the receiver grooves on the main bearing cap. |
| 05:15 | So I'll just drop that down now. |
| 05:23 | So at this point the main bearing cap has been slotted home into the engine block. |
| 05:29 | And when we're doing this we want to be just feeling to make sure that there's no undue restriction or undue force necessary to drop that main bearing cap into place. |
| 05:38 | If we do need to apply any undue force then this could indicate we've got a problem or one of our thrust washers may have fallen out. |
| 05:46 | So it's a good idea here to stop, remove everything, clean it up, inspect it, then have another go. |
| 05:52 | Once we've done this we can obviously now torque our main bearing cap down. |
| 05:57 | Now any time we're fitting a new crankshaft or new thrust bearings it's always a good idea to check the thrust clearance in the engine to ensure that that's adequate and within our manufacturer's specifications. |
