My bad luck with my 6m-ge

1338 Views 3 Replies 3 Participants Last post by trdmkii, Aug 22, 2003

trdmkii

Discussion Starter · Aug 22, 2003

Well long story short is that i bought a 6m-ge motor off of jeff taumlis' friend may 2002 before they became the 7m-gte swapping masters of the united states...lol and after it sat at home for 2 months i put it in and it knocked first off i thought it was something that i did. i finally took it out of the car and on a stand to later work on.

This year i decided i was going to figure out the problem. I ripped apart the block took out the pistons and bearings to only find worn bearings, no sign of trouble. The pistons and rods looked ok but i couldn't find a specific problem and without the proper measuring tools i couldn't do the job myself.

So i decided to take to a highly recommended machine shop for check out and an estimate of what it would cost to repair and/or rebuild to good working order. I took to a place called columbus col-weld here in columbus, oh. Now that your all caught up, yes big time lapses in time because of my busy schedule, lets get on to the nitty gritty.

Col-weld called me today to explain to me that the pistons were "shrunk" is how they put it and that there was i beleive over .006" of clearance between the cylinder walls...that's a lot. I don't know where or what parts they are going to put in, i told the guy i was at work and i would call him when i had a better time to talk, but i think i'm getting a little overcharged. He said they would bore the cylinders put in new pistons rings bearings, polish the crank(it was ok) and supply it with a gasket set that i would get the extra parts to assemble the top end.

The estimate was 1,259 dollars with labor and parts included, i would like to know does that seem high, i'm going to ask them what the parts cost so that since i work at toyota i may be able to get cheaper better parts (unless of course they are using toyota gaskets and oil pump). It just seems a lot i was talking to some people that explained to me that i should be looking at around 700 dollars but i'm not sure. And i do not know if that includes balancing the engine. I don't know what to do, i want to get the 84 running and eventually i want to put a 7m-gte in my 85 but would need another car to drive (meaning the 84), if i was to do that, now i bought the 6m for 600 now with this puts the price to almost 2000.

So is that high and what do you guys think i should do?

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pdupler

· #2 · Aug 22, 2003

I had a 6m high performance rebuild a few years ago at a cost of about $2400. Subtract $600 for the forged pistons and probably about $450 for the head work and $100 for the ceramics and you come to about $1250 for the block work and gaskets. That did include fully balanced entire rotating assembly from flywheel to harmonic. I just did a very basic rebuild on a 5m block for about $650 but that did not include boring the cylinders, only crosshatch hone and new rings and reused the oil pump. Both cranks were std, just polish. I'm sure labor rates vary a bit from place to place but that probably represents the range you would be looking at from a minimum to a maximum depending on how much work is really needed. People telling you to expect much lower costs are probably used to thinking american v8s for which parts are cheaper and cores are so plentiful its common to just exchange (rebuilder gears up and does'em in batch to same spec rather than tooling for each engine in order it comes like the import shops have to do).

Phil D.

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Tommy

· #3 · Aug 22, 2003

Gera,
The pistons may be collapsed (the piston skirts are no longer the shape they should be) and that would be the source of the knock you mentioned. It's actually piston slap and should be most noticeable when the engine is cold. The .006 clearance isn't really TOO excessive though, and should make for a fairly quick engine, but one that will NOT take high loads without a thorough warm up.
As for the price of the overhaul, I would say that is reasonable considering I paid $800 at Toysport for the same thing without the bore job and new pistons, and fresh bearings but no crank polish.
I would ask them how much if you supply the gaskets and oil pump.
Good luck and keep us posted.
Jamie

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trdmkii

Discussion Starter · #4 · Aug 22, 2003

i think i'm going to do that, but i couldn't call them today because i moved my gf into college in west virginia and i didn't return in time they were already closed i'll have to catch em next week.

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