Leaderboard

I googled the main caps and there are sets of them on eBay, used, and they look exactly like what I have, markings and all. Same for the windage tray which appears to be a running change in the later 3800's, not just the supercharged ones. Nothing special here, just a repair for unknown reasons. I think they are supposed to be floating pins, the main difference in the s/c rods.

Moving on to the bottom end, I found the oil pan was pretty beat up, which is a disappointment and it appears to remove the oil they simply poked a hole in the pan so it is essentially junk. What I did find that was interesting is there is a sort of windage tray that is sandwiched between the block and the pan. It is a separate piece that can be used over. There was no sludge or heavy residue in the pan. I noticed numbers and letters stamped on the front crank counterweight. I have never seen that before and it seemed to indicate the crankshaft had been ground undersize. When I went to remove the front main cap I saw there were also painted numbers and letters on the front side of the counterweight. After I removed the from main cap, I removed the bearing half and it is indeed .010" undersize, so I imagine the rods have been ground .030" as indicated in the note. I did not see anything terribly wrong with the one bearing I pulled. It is not perfect but good enough to run. The bearing is a Federal Mogul aluminum type which is pretty much factory. I mentioned the relatively clean pistons earlier and while I did not notice any markings indicating they were oversize, everything may have been cleaned up previously. Aside from the windage tray, the one big difference from the LN3 engine is the crankshaft main caps are huge by comparison. I set one of each together for a photo and while they will pretty much interchange, even the bolts for the s/c cap penetrate further into the block. It certainly looks like it means business.