Need to change Rod bearings...any tips?

Question

Currently waiting on the rod bearings to arrive in the mail for my 2003 ford mustang. Im 17 and its my first time doing this, anyone have any tips? or is there any special way that I have to change the bearings? When I bought the bearings I saw there were also oversized bearings, how do I know whether to get the oversized or standard? I went with the standard to be safe, but is there a way I can find out which kind I need?

Answer 1

This is just me being anal, but you'd actually be getting undersized bearings not oversized. You really needed to have pulled the engine, checked the crankshaft journals out in order to see if you needed new bearings. If the reason you are changing the bearings is you spun a rod bearing, you'll have to get your crank ground which would require undersized bearings, but you won't know the undersized amount until you've pulled everything apart and taken it to a machine shop to have the journals resized. If you've spun a rod bearing, you'll also need to get the big end on the rod resized, because it will be toast. If there's just too much slop due to wear, you'll still need to get the journals resized, which the machine shop will tell you what size to get (or will get them for you at your cost).

I understand you are excited to get into this and get your car back on the road, but realistically you'll probably end up returning what you've bought to get the correct sizes. If you don't know what size of bearings you need, or when you'll need undersized bearings, it would seem to me you didn't do your homework on what you're doing. I'm not trying to be mean here, I'm just laying out a few specifics (which @Ben alluded to). If you need specific instructions on how to go about figuring it all out, please ask another question and someone will jump all over it.