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4A-FE bent rod, would it affect the block?

3K views 3 replies 4 participants last post by  Flashmn 
#1 ·
Kind of a dumb question, but at least you'll go into this topic with some beautiful pictures of some bent up 4A-FE rods! I have this '97 shortblock that I bought to use for my crazy build. The guy I bought it from pulled this out of his Corolla to swap in a 4A-FTE he was building (I'm pretty sure that was the gist of it). Anyways, I helped this guy pull the flywheel, head, etc off since he had it out of his car but not quite ready for me to pick up just the block.

First thing I noticed wrong, the harmonic balancer (crank pulley, whatever) was loose... the crank bolt was in place and tightened, but apparently the bolt backed out or it was never properly torqued whenever it was last removed. The crank key had worn a short groove along the outside of the pulley! So it would slide into place (and stay) when all the way against the timing gear, but when you pulled the pulley towards the crank bolt, there was a short path for the pulley to rotate along. If you can visualize that.

Anyways... fast forward to me with the block in my garage, trying to remove the timing gear in order to give it back to the guy. (Gear has teeth for crank position sensor.) I couldn't get that gear off. It looked as though the key had been mangled from vibrations or welded into place from the heat, and that gear was not coming off without a fight. In fact it's still on the crank, along with the oil pump! (See this pic here, lol...)

So I'm guessing this bad pulley situation caused the first rod (nearest the oil pump -- cylinder 1?) to get bent severely? Rod 2 is also bent. 3 & 4 don't seem to be bad, but I wouldn't trust them. Doesn't matter since I'm not using them anyway. Check out the bad bearings on rod 4 (pics below)...

My main question is, would the block & main caps be OK? I'll definitely take this to a machine shop to be checked out, but I thought I'd ask you guys first since it might be a while.

Rods 1, 2, 3, 4 (left to right, from oil pump to main seal)


Rod 1


Rod 4's upper bearing


Rod 4's bearing closeup. Funny enough, the crank itself looks OK.
 
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