I fear my 73 145e needs a main bearing.

Coming off an expressway on a hard right hand cloverleaf, I noticed a scratching sound, which, by the time I had pulled into my driveway, had excalated to a grinding shreik. It still starts, but the starter pulls hard on the engine.

Anyhoo, do I have to pull the engine to have a look? Does anyone have a good method for looking at/replacing the main bearings as easily as possible. The car is an automatic and a bit of a rust bucket, but I still like it.

Thanks in advance. Michael Pergiel, ELmhurst, IL.

I have a hard time imagining how you would have destroyed a main bearing.

I'd find it a lot easier to imagine a timing gear about to come to

pieces. Maybe even a torque converter or something.

Furthest out would be a rod bearing.

You can lift the engine a little and drop the front

crossmember and then get the pan off but it is almost as much

work as pulling the engine. I'd only do it if I was also

planning to do some front end work anyway.

I'm with George. Loosing a main bearing rarely happens all at once. Usually it has a deep knock in the bottom of the motor. If it does spin, it almost always seizes the crank and the motor won't turn over at all. You may have lost something in the valve train or who knows what. Try to isolate the sound when you get the car running again and go from their. If you did indeed loose a bearing, you might consider a major rebuild.....

Leonard

Thanks very much you guys. I would have torn into it. There's no low end knock. I'll look at the cam and torque convertor ends today. Is the b20 an interference engine?

No, and neither are most of the later Volvo engines.