Engine rebuild, bother with the bearings or not?

[89Camry89]

I acquired a used 4 cylinder engine to replace my ailing 3S-FE.

I am going to do all of the soft seals, timing belt, etc on the donor engine with 175,000 miles, but I have yet to decide whether or not I should pro-actively replace all of the crank, rod, and thrust bearings as well bore the cylinders and replace the rings and perhaps the pistons.

My gut feeling was that I should go whole hog, but as I study up on it, I find two schools of thought. One says leave well enough alone and deal only with the present issues. The other says to do it 100%


I wonder the same about a valve job, or even removing the head at all.



I obtained the engine from a wrecked car. I was able to test drive it a short distance and the engine sounded ok, but there is no way to know if it was burning any oil.


Can anyone share their experiences?

[white90dx]

My vote is to keep the engine 'unopened.' There are plenty of stories of 300k mile motors that are still fine with the bearings, head gasket, etc. (of course, there is the opposite stories)

Once the motor is cracked open, it will never be as reliable as factory.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

-Charlie

[71Corolla]

Originally Posted by white90dx

Once the motor is cracked open, it will never be as reliable as factory.

100% agreed, unless there is a specific reason to open up the engine and mess with the internals, leave it as is.