Need advice please!..rebuild 7mgte or no?

[znick742]

Alright guys I need some advice I can't make up my mind. I bought a 89 turbo about a month ago. As I was driving it home(about a 2 hour drive) it got a horrible rod knock so I pulled it as soon as I got home to take a look and it spun a bearing( the guy put the wrong bearings in it). And it ruined the crank and a rod so I saved some money and just went and bought a used 7mgte yesterday with 150,000 miles on it. So I brought it home and took the oil pan off to take a look and it all looks surprisingly good for so many miles bearings looked good and everything. I haven't taken the head off yet but the motor was running good when it was pulled so I'm guessing it's gonna be in good condition(I have another head if it's not). So here's where I'm stuck, I can buy a gasket set and a mhg and put it together and call it good since its a running motor or I can wait a few more weeks and do more work to it. Such as send the head to a shop to just get a little refresh and buy some pistons and stuff. What do you guys think I should do? I only drove the car 2 hours total since I had it so I'm pretty anxious to drive it and have it running so I'm thinking about just a gasket set but idk :icon_conf

 

[Compton74]

Well it all comes down to what you want to do, bearings, gasket kit, and MHG will set you back around 500 bucks. If your going to spend that sort of cash to rebuild your engine Id make sure you do it the right way and get the head resurfaced new valve stem seals (usually come in the gasket kit) and hot tank. Also have to be careful but you can reuse a metal head gasket if it had one on it when it blew the rod, if not, all that machining will need to be done to make the MHG fit correctly. If your going to do the work do it right don't spare on anything and you'll have a good running car. Good luck!

 

[znick742]

I want to just put it in since it's a running motor already but I want to make sure it will last cause I don't want to pull it back out for awhile, but I'm not sure how much longer it will last with 150,000 miles If I leave it how it is

 

[Compton74]

Well that's the key thing, was it driven hard and not taken care of? You don't know. Did you take a rod cap and main cap off and check out the bearings?

 

[JStoked]

If you do a head gasket do not use a mgh unless you take the head and block to a machine shop and have them checked and machined it first or you will just be doing it over again. My suggestion is to get a new oem head gasket from drift motion and arp stud kit and go that route if you want a quick fix. But that's just my suggestion.

 

[znick742]

The guy said he never went over stock boost and his stepdad had it before him so I'm assuming it wasn't drivin very hard by his stepdad and the guy I got it from only had the car for about 6 months and the motor is all original besides some dress up(pulleys,spark plug wires) so I think it was takin care of but theres no way I can really know for sure. And yeah i checked the bearings and they looked really good they probably don't even need to be changed there was no play or anything and the inside of the motor was really clean I was surprised with 150,xxx miles on it

---------- Post added at 03:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:16 PM ----------

Yeah that's what I was thinking about the head gasket jstoked cause I don't want to have problems with the head gasket and I been going through the forums a lot and it sounds like you have to have the block and head like glass to have a mhg. And I already have the arp studs from my other motor so I'll probably just get the oem gasket and torque it down good

 

[JStoked]

Just make sure you know what the torque specs are for those studs you will prob need to call arp to get the right specs.

 

[3.0 beast]

if theres anything iv learned from messing with teh 7mgte is do it rite the first time because you probably will have to do more work at the end for trying to shortcut it...good luck tho