• Welcome to the Contour Enthusiasts Group, the best resource for the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique.

    You can register to join the community.

Weird?

Yeah, unfortunately that was my thought as well. Hopefully I flushed all that out of the system. I bought a completely new pickup tube because I'm not even going to try to get all that out of there. I get the parts today and I'll install them but I'm not going to attempt to start the car until I polish the hell out of the crank and install my oil pressure guage.
 
I think it's fairly common to see that black sealant in the pickup. My Cougar's pickup was full of it when I pulled my pan off to tap it for my supercharger drain. I cleaned it out after seeing all the crap in there. It may be worth it for those building an engine to clean it out shortly after running it.
 
Yeah, well I didn't think that I used that much RTV. I only used a pea sized drop on every place that needed it. It takes an hour tops to pull your oil pan, I'd say it's some good insurance if you ask me.
 
Well I just polished down the crank. It looks a little better but still there is some very small gouging. I'll be reinstalling everything tomorrow and hooking up the oil pressure guage and firing her up. We'll see how everything goes. What should my oil pressure be on start up and then at idle?
 
well i just dropped my pan also after my oil pressure dropped to 13 psi, and i found both too. havent pulled the caps yet but im afraid i ran into the same problem with around the same miles but on a fully forged engine
 
Very sorry to hear that man. Pull the caps and inspect the damage. You really have no choice and at least you know what kind of damage was done. Let me know how it all turns out. Feel free to post your findings in this thread since they are both going to be on the exact same thing and hopefully we can work through this and get these babies up and running again.
 
or maybe i can just part it out, but so much money into the block, and heads and everything maybe i should just replace the bearings
 
I've considered the part out option and it would just be such a huge waste. You MIGHT be able to replace the bearings. It all depends on how your crank looks. My crank isn't too bad, I only had the car on for maybe 15 seconds after I believe I spun the bearing. I polished the crank down and it's at least worth the gamble of $70 for new bearings and new bolts. But for all you know your crank is completely shot, which would be a waste of money to try to just replace the bearings. You really need to assess the damage before any types of decisions are made.
 
Alright I'll be installing everything today and be starting it all up again tomorrow. If the crank is shot, what exactly would I be looking for? I didn't have any rod knock before hand so I'm guessing that I should be looking for it this time around. I'll be keeping a close eye for low oil pressure. What should the oil pressure be on start up and then idle? If the car makes it 100 miles then I'm tearing it all down again to inspect the bearings but I don't know exactly what I should be looking for in that 100 mile period to indicate problems.
 
Where is your oil pressure gauge tapped into? The rear head? Depending on the tempurature it can change the startup readings. Mine reads fairly high when cool outside, maybe 70+ psi and then when the engine warms up at idle it's around 13-17psi. I have mine tapped in the rear head near the DPFE sensor. I think it reads slightly lower in this location for some reason.
 
Alright, before I do anything completely stupid and restart this car with the new bearings I have a question. Is there a way a shop can inspect these bearings and potentially rework them with the crank in the car? If this doesn't work I can only see it making the crank worse which will require me to buy a new crank potentially. I'm not in any rush and I would like to do this properly with doing as little work as possible.
 
Last edited:
Put it all back together and started her up. Startup (hot) - 50 psi, Cruising 35-50 psi, full gas - close to 60-70 psi, idle - about 20-25 psi. There is no rod knock at all and engine sounds good. I guess it'll take a couple days of driving before I can tell if the bearings are being torn apart or not. Early indications are good but I won't know for sure for another 100 miles or so.
 
Last edited:
Agreed, but only time will tell. Took it out tonight for a 20 minute drive. Oil pressure stayed in the ranges it should be in so I guess that's good news. Unfortunately I don't know that those bearings arn't being torn apart as I drive it though. In 100 miles I will be performing an oil change where I will be inspecting for metal flakes. If I find any, this car is done for. I will be parting it out and finding another car. If there are no flakes I will do another oil change 500 miles later and inspect for metal again. If I clear both those tests I think it's safe to say that I'm good to go. Sound like a good plan?
 
Well, I think it's starting again. Upon startup the oil light remained on for a second after start up and oil pressure guage read zero. During that second the car ran very rough and then the oil pressure shot up to 100 psi and everything was fine. There is no way the bearings arn't being torn apart. I'll be doing an oil change soon and I'm expecting to find some metal flakes. The car will be parted out of all performance modifications, suspension, tranny, etc. and returned to stock form where it will then be sold.
 
Back
Top