Thread: D4 3.0 SDV6 catastrophic failure

Keep the 3L D4, invest $10K in a body-off crankshaft bearing and seal refresh, replace the belts and sprockets, and if not changed recently, the serpentine belt and pulleys, water pump, a/c compressor and alternator.

Originally Posted by Graeme

Keep the 3L D4, invest $10K in a body-off crankshaft bearing and seal refresh, replace the belts and sprockets, and if not changed recently, the serpentine belt and pulleys, water pump, a/c compressor and alternator.

What would have been required to fix your son's 3L that failed? As in, after it failed..

Another crankshaft, 1 conrod, 1 set of rings and all gaskets to R&R the crank and 1 piston. Such kits are available for around $2700 with a nitroed crankshaft or $3000 with a forged crankshaft, but I don't know the origins of the crankshafts. A Ford F150 cranksahft (forged) costs around $3500. These costs are in addition to the cost to R&R the body, which is included in my earlier post about preventative maintenance.

Nitroed crankshafts in Subarus snap whereas forged ones don't so it seems the extra $300 would be worthwhile if using one of these kits. Subaru reverted to forged crankshafts.

It would probably have been cheaper to fix the seized engine but we didn't know the extent of the damage at the time and waiting until the body was removed would have increased the time the vehicle would be blocking 1 hoist at the workshop. As the engine only seized after it was switched off whilst idling seemingly normally, the bore is unlikely to have been damaged. However as this engine had done over 300K kms it may not be prudent to repair it, which was also taken into consideration when deciding on the 120K km replacement engine.

It would have been much more convenient and cheaper to plan to overhaul the working engine rather than have it fail without warning then having to wait many weeks before starting on the repair, saying nothing of the lack of confidence in the engine not bringing the car home each time it went out.

Interesting.
First I’ve heard of PM to this extent…what Kms is the general thinking on doing this.
Given you can’t buy a new engine nowadays would be interesting to hear of anyone who has done this.
I see Christian on LR time has rebuilt a few of these engines, not something I could undertake, has anyone heard of any AU based mechanics going this type of work?

Originally Posted by Graeme

Keep the 3L D4, invest $10K in a body-off crankshaft bearing and seal refresh, replace the belts and sprockets, and if not changed recently, the serpentine belt and pulleys, water pump, a/c compressor and alternator.

Interesting Graeme - I'll speak to my Indy tomorrow. Hope the dogs are behaving themselves and the farm is going great plus your lovely wife. My Indy is confident about my vehicle but I do negative scenarios. You fitted my Llams setup, better than I would have. I love it. My D4 has 124,000 with maybe 40-45K towing that van along with my wife and I have had Some extras in and on the vehicle too.

Originally Posted by Graeme

Another crankshaft, 1 conrod, 1 set of rings and all gaskets to R&R the crank and 1 piston. Such kits are available for around $2700 with a nitroed crankshaft or $3000 with a forged crankshaft, but I don't know the origins of the crankshafts. A Ford F150 cranksahft (forged) costs around $3500. These costs are in addition to the cost to R&R the body, which is included in my earlier post about preventative maintenance.

A Ford crankshaft F150 forged seems well worth it to me.

I wonder if Ford South Africa produces spare crankshafts for parts? The motor is now made there (the F150 crank would have been made in Dagenham in England). Ford then it seems moved the plant to South Africa, where the motor is now made.

I read somewhere that the South African crankshaft is slightly thicker. I think it was on the new ranger site.

The issue with the bearings is the reliance on the very thin hard coating (it isn't a wear layer) staying intact plus that the supporting layer beneath it is too soft for any crankshaft imperfections and the inherent vibrations of the V6 design especially affecting the middle 2 mains. Fitting trimetal bearings which have 2 wear layers (the 2nd is harder wearing than the 1st) on top of a supporting layer will avoid the sudden failure that can occur with the original bearings.
All's well here thanks MP.