I did an internet search, including the ag/ind sites with no luck. I did get an email from TADiesel this morning saying that they had the rod bearings that I was looking for, but after quizzing them a little they responded that the bearings were indeed undersized rather than oversized, which of course disappointed me! So I asked them to quote me a price on four rods. They came back with $150 each, so I'm going to go that route.
As for Foley, I approached them with an interest in purchasing a remanufactured 4.108 from them (listed at $7K). They originally agreed to take my Perkins 4.107 (the one that I am now rebuilding) as a core, but changed their minds after thinking about it overnight--they were only interested in a 4.108, not a 4.107. The core charge was $4K and that was too rich for me. So I wound up purchasing my major overhaul kit from them and I am embarrassed to say that I did no due diligence before doing so.
I did however read the complaints against them after the fact, and I must say that other than charging me about two times what the kit is going for on other sites they have acted honorably. They shipped the kit out promptly, it appears to be of good quality, and it was complete. My only issue with them as I mentioned was the price I paid, but that was my fault for not doing more research.
The crankshaft looks surprisingly good. All the journals and crankpins miked out very close to nominal and showed very little wear. The original main bearings showed showed no wear other than some scuffing on the upper (block) forward side of the #1 bearing shell and a little scuffing on the lower (cap) rear side of the #2 bearing shell. The #3 shell looked good. They miked out very close to nominal, within a few tenths. I attribute the scuffing to someone (not me-most likely a previous owner) tightening the double alternator belt too tight--a common problem as I understand it. The engine room had a lot of black belt dust in it when I bought the boat 9 years ago. I found the alternator to be a half inch out of line, corrected it, and gave it no further thought until now. I will probably install one of the serpentine belt arrangements that are available in order to reduce the bending on the crankshaft.
And speaking of crankshaft bend, I measured it as part of the removal process. I pulled the #2 main bearing shell from the block, set the crankshaft back in, and used a dial indicator that measures to a ten thousandth to measure the bend. Bend measured 0.0004 inch, which is right at the spec limit. I rotated the crankshaft until the bend was "up" and let the crankshaft sit suspended on the #1 and #3 bearing shells for a couple of days while monitoring it periodically. As I expected, the bend decreased over that time to about 0.00025 as near as could interpolate between the tenth marks. At that point I was satisfied, so I removed the crankshaft, fabricated a "liner puller", and removed the cylinder liners, which was pretty much the last part of the disassembly process.
The connecting rod bearing shells were different animals entirely. They all showed pretty significant scuffing and one (#4) showed obvious scoring from debris between the shell and the crankshaft. But as I mentioned, the crankshaft looked great. The #2 shell (in the rod) showed evidence of overheating--not surprising since the engine had overheated due to a hose coming loose according to the guy from whom I bought it four or five years ago. That's how I was able to buy it so cheap ($500 complete with heat exchanger, high output alternator, etc.). He told me that he had just had the cylinder head rebuilt and had about six hours on the engine before the hose problem. He said that the engine had "a bad cylinder" and would need new liner o-rings on one of the cylinders. I assume that he (or more likely his mechanic) noticed seepage from one of the weep holes in the block. That was the first thing I noticed when I began the disassembly. I did a leakdown test on the engine before I started the teardown and found that the #2 cylinder was leaking into the #1 and #3 cylinders, and it was the #2 weep hole that showed the evidence of leakage, so it was not a surprise to me.
I checked the cylinder head for flatness and found two interesting things--first and most obvious was that whoever had rebuilt the head had gone over it with a belt sander and left longitudinal scratches all over the head surface. The second thing was that the head had a low spot between the #2 combustion chamber and the pushrod holes. So I had a machine shop mill it as little as possible to clean it up. I will measure the piston to valve clearance when I get to that point and compare it against the Westerbeke 4.107 engine that's in the boat before I decide whether to use that head or the one from the Westerbeke.
What's wrong with the Westerbeke you might ask? I fell victim to the old "raw water pump seal failure". I changed the engine oil in the fall of 2011 as part of my annual "put it to bed" maintenance and let it sit over the winter. I started it up in the spring of 2012 and it ran fine for 2 or 3 minutes and then--it stopped and wouldn't restart. I pulled the dipstick and found the crankcase full of water. I did the usual things--changing the oil and filter three times and pulled the raw water pump. It and the fuel injection pump gear were rusty, so my guess is that it had been failing gradually over time and I just hadn't noticed it. So I figured it was time to break out the spare Perkins 4.107 engine and rebuild it.
Sorry for the book...
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