How to tell if you spun a bearing?

93 teal terror

Founding Member
Jul 13, 2001
971
62
69
Durham N.C.
I noticed on my way home from work the other day, the car was acting a little off. Some bucking/loss of power. The next day I went to the store and as I was leaving my neighborhood, at about 4k in first, it felt like something popped or gave way. Lost all power, lots of bucking, cel came on. The motor idles fine (a little rougher than normal) but as soon as you give it gas, it sputters and has 0 power. I had to limp home, luckily it was down hill. I dont hear any knocks in the motor. I am waiting on my scanner to arrive, so I dont know what the code is yet. but it comes on 3-4 seconds after the car starts up. Hoping its not a bearing. An oil line broke last summer and the car ran with little/no oil for ~1-2 mins. Car has 173k on it.
 
You should hear a light knocking with a spun bearing, try getting down near the oil pan to listen for it.... Ive spun lots of bearings in my day and ive heard the knocking right away on all of them.
 
I just went and checked and I dont hear any knocking. I didn't think to check the timing before...Total with spout in is about 20 deg, out I can't even tell. Seems like it may have jumped? If I remember it was 10 deg out/30 deg total. If thats the case, what would cause that? Bad balancer/timing chain. Pretty sure neither of those have been replaced in 173k
 
Not sure a spun bearing would even cause a code or check engine light.
You probably have some sort of ignition or sensor related problem.
A good sign of a spun bearing would be bad oil pressure.
 
You should hear a light knocking with a spun bearing, try getting down near the oil pan to listen for it.... Ive spun lots of bearings in my day and ive heard the knocking right away on all of them.

yeah same here. the knocking will be from the crank pulling and pushing on the rod as the bearing is no longer in there. since the bearing is gone it will have that gap in there and you should be able to hear it without going under the car.
 
Ok, I got my scanner and the KOEO test produced codes 66 and 67. And the a/c,heat was off. I can't adjust the timing to where it should be. The distributer wont turn that far and any adjustment to the dizzy left or right makes it run worse. The car wont even do the KOER test because it wants to die as soon as the test starts so it seems like it aborts the test. Any idea what would cause this?