Casper

[occasional demons]

So I pulled the rear drums off the '01, as I am stripping the body, I replaced the drums shoes and hardware with all new Mopar parts a few years back, maybe 20,000 miles.

The shoe friction pad basically fell out with the drum, just like above. I guess sitting for 4 years in a garage is beyond their ability. Glad I wasn't depending on them for reuse, as I plan on using the rear discs I have. Still a bit disappointing for Mopar parts, makes me glad I spent the extra $$$.

[MyNeonSaysHi]

Yikes. Yeah that shouldn't happen. Rear disc for the win

[occasional demons]

US manufacturers need to do much better.

Works with stock retainers they say.

Right...



The ID and OD are larger than stock, letting the spring move off center way too much.

The top of the spring could kit the bottom edge of the opening on its way back up. Gee, I wonder what happens then...

Sure, I can remove material so it won't make contact, but the spring will still be moving all over the place. Not much of an upgrade IMHO.

Their retainers state they can be used with stock springs, so that tells me those won't help center their springs if they actually fit into the stock spring.

[occasional demons]

The stock spring @ .735" I.D., is about .010" larger than the Crane springs I.D. Crane advertises their I.D. as .725"
Crower's I.D. is .780"

The retainer is .690" where it fits into the spring. So the Crane springs would have even better movement control than the stock springs. More of what you would expect from a performance part, not something that has .090" of slop.

I guess I should have spent the $20 extra.

But not having a spare set of oem springs to measure, I guess I put too much faith in the general opinion of Crower's products.

[JeremyJ]

There was another guy on the .org who just had a BC spring break and drop a valve. They had 50k on them. Someone mentioned replacing them at a shorter interval, but I've never heard of that before. I just assumed performance valve springs were good for at least as long as stock springs.

[occasional demons]

Yeah, I PM'ed him the link to my thread on there. He told me he was running BC's. I do't know what their overall diameters are, if that had anything to do with his failure.

I would also think that performance springs would be more reliable, in addition to keeping the valves more stable at higher rpm.

Springs can weaken over time, but I would think that would be more in the 100,000 mile plus area. The only issue i ever had with valve springs was on my '72 400 RB engine I dropped in my '79 Ramcharger.

It got to be where I couldn't get it over 3000 rpm, because the valves would start to float. That one took me some head banging to figure out. Who would think of valve float at 3000 rpm?


But there is just enough of a casting lip on the exhaust side with the DOHC head, that those Crowers had enough slop that they would hit that. It would either wear the coil wire and snap, or snag and possibly upset the retainer. Maybe my cylinder head is a bit tight on tolerances there, but the fact that the coils have .090" to slide around doesn't excite me much either.

I don't know what Mitsubishi engines these fit; if the extra diameter is needed, but if so, they should sell them specifically for that application, instead of making it for both brands. The DSM 420A would be the same specs as the Mopar 2.4. So if that's what they mean by Mitsu, then they fail even more.

[occasional demons]

The head is back on, I reassembled it with the stock springs. .020" more lift isn't going to hurt them.

Oh well, at least the valve seals are replaced, and the carbon cleaned out.

I'll have to drop the exhaust to replace the stud that twisted off that connects to the header. No amount of heat and ATF/Acetone was saving it. At least those are still available from Mopar...

[occasional demons]

Well, I should have tossed the (low mileage) Gates idler for the timing belt while I was in there.

Gates, the gift that keeps on fucking giving. It began rattling like a bitch today. It's either that or the litens tensioner, but my bet is on the idler. Hopefully Litens is still reliable parts, or we all are up shit creek...

Glad I purged the Subaru of all the Gates shit while I was in there....

Makes me happy I wasn't relying on it to get me to Carlisle and back. If it had tossed a timing belt in the middle of nowhere, I probably would have called a ride, and left it. Ain't worth a $1000 plus tow bill.

At least it's home, and it shouldn't be too difficult of a fix, provided it is just the idler.

[JeremyJ]

That sucks. Timing belt issues on these cars are never a fun fix.

[occasional demons]

Gee, I can spend $50 at Summit Racing for a Mopar pulley, or $52 at O' Reilly's for another POS Gates. Seems to be the only options for "local" pick up.

I still have to determine if it is the idler to be 100% sure. Probably my project for tomorrow...

[Midnight_Rider]

I would go for the OEM one but I'm sure that doesn't surprise you.

[occasional demons]

Well it was pretty much sarcasm...

More $$$ for an inferior part.

All is quiet and happy now.

[MyNeonSaysHi]

Yikes, thats a lot of work. But I am sure you got it down to a science. Which car were you having the issues with? the 99 with the 2.4 swap? (Looking at sig) I know that purple one you have is a work in progress.
Glad you got it running again.

[occasional demons]

Yeah, the 2.4 swap.

Probably going to be a while before the '00 gets an engine.