Warped rod

[subaru-guru]

ive been driving my car and now ive noticed i hear a knock that happens to be a warped rod. i dont have alot of money and i dont wana have to drop the engine. i dont know if i should part it ou or what cause ive been planning on selling it and i want the most money i can get out of it obviously. any suggestions on what i should do would be great.

[dodik]

how do you know its a warped rod??

[Huffer]

^^ I was going to ask this too.
But the easiest solution if your internals are wacked is to swap in a new engine.

[subaru-guru]

i would swap the engine but im trying to sell the car and i dont have enough money to buy a new engine and then swap it, my engine is knocking as the pistons go up and down and i brought to my dads friends shop and found out the rod is warped, so im babying it. i cant seem to find any soltuion to get the most money out of my car rather than parting it out which pisses me off ause the car is in such good shape, it sucks to know i have an engine problem which will greatly bring the price down.

[subaru-guru]

i dont know if it could also be the bearing causing the knock, and if im gunna have to change the berings i didnt know how easy it would be to replace them myself. ive also noticed a large amount of power loss my car is struggling to get up to speed, and it feels like my car is reaching higher rpms before shifting ( i have an automatic :-( )

[Huffer]

If your dad has a shop, you should be able to get the labor done free? At least you'll have all the tools. A used engine would only cost around $800 +/- shipping.

[dodik]

are you absolutely sure its not a lifter/lash adjuster knock? my old bd knocked like a horny woodpecker but with some lucas oil stabilizer after warm up sound almost would go away? why would the rod be bent what kind of car/engine do you have whats the milage on it?

[subaru-guru]

my rear main seal has been leeking forever and im sure oil ran low at some point. i had put 20w 50 since my car has 160,000 miles roughly. i have the 2.5L. im so broke i cant afford the used engine. plus ive got college to pay for also.

[dodik]

blown main does happend but 20w50 wtf, 160k is relatively normal milage for your car my old car ran on 5w30 untill 275k, did the knock happend before or after you put that oil in? i think its just to thick for a ej25,

[Huffer]

my rear main seal has been leeking forever and im sure oil ran low at some point. i had put 20w 50 since my car has 160,000 miles roughly. i have the 2.5L. im so broke i cant afford the used engine. plus ive got college to pay for also.

Thats the problem. The oil is too thick and you're essentially telling the engine to push molasses around inside it. If your rear main seal popped before the thick oil you should have fixed it. The thickest oil you should ever put in these engines is 10w40. Anything thicker and you're way off the factory charts.

I bet if you changed the oil a couple of times to 10w30 you'd notice an improvement, but you may have already done the damage.

Maybe you're not so much of a "subaru-guru"?

[dodik]

^^that and he most likely ran engine dry and worn out cylinder wall and/or ring and that knock is piston slap if anything, to bend/(warp :smt017 ) a rod you need something to resist it like to much pressure or timing belt to slip and hit a valve or something of that nature. but yeah running tractor oil is NEVER going to help. best bet is to taker negine apart and actually what is broken/dmaged or like huffer said find a different engien swap it and sell the car as a good runnign vehicle youll profit more than by just selling as is or you can always part it out.

[decke48]

subaru lists you can run 50 weight oil, but you need real warm unhumid climate. i run 15w40 diesel oil all the time in my car, only increases 4psi when cold, 1-2psi warm.

[subaru-guru]

the knock was there before and i was worried about losing oil, so i added 20w 50, i had ran on 10w 30 fro a while, but i was just leaking too much and i added the oil leak additive. im probly guna dissassemble the engine and replace any damaged parts. 20w 50 normally is ran in some car with mileage over 175k so i wanted it to leak less by adding it, may have been a bad move.

[rougeben83]

the knock was there before and i was worried about losing oil, so i added 20w 50, i had ran on 10w 30 fro a while, but i was just leaking too much and i added the oil leak additive. im probly guna dissassemble the engine and replace any damaged parts. 20w 50 normally is ran in some car with mileage over 175k so i wanted it to leak less by adding it, may have been a bad move.

putting a bandaid on a gunshot wound is never a good idea. If you were losing that much oil to begin with you should have fixed it then. No comfort in it now, but learn from your mistakes I guess...

The only time subaru recommends 40 or 50w oil in their cars is for turbocharged engine under racing conditions...the added sheer and heat protection from the heavier weight oil is worth sacrificing some lubrication when the oil is still cold since the engine will always be at or near redline at those times.

[subaru-guru]

naw i was loosing about a quart every month, i ran with 20w 50 not 40w 50. i havnt been able to drive the car much so its mostly driven only like 20 minutes a day. i was planning on fixing it because im going off to college and i wanted to get a newer subie, but then this whole misshap started. :(

[ouch1011]

20w50 is oil for race engines. the difference is that race engines typically run really high oil temps because of the high rpm and they don't get driven until the oil is pretty much up to temp. 20w50 is way too thick for any street car, regardless of how worn out the engine is.

chances are what you are hearing is bearing knock. like others said, the only way you'll bend a rod is if it hits something that significantly resists being compressed, like water, or a shitload of pressure. if you've been running oil like that for a while, you've probably starved some important rotating parts of oil.

changing out any of the bearings requires engine removal becauise on a boxer engine you have to split the engine in half to get to any of them. and by half, i mean left and right side, not top/bottom.