Anyone know a likely source of shell bearings (cam and big end) for a Daihatsu Skywing/Charade?
I’ve reason to believe mine might be knackered, but I’d rather identify a source before I have a look, since its a bit of a hassle taking the sump off again. I’m hoping replacement in situ might be an option.
If there isn’t a local source I suppose they’d be small enough to ship. One possibility is China, since I think they still make a Charade clone, and I know a Ford dealer who does business there. They’d be Chinese, though.
Taking a more pessimistic view, if the crankshaft needed machined, who would you trust to do it, and roughly how much would they be likely to charge?
Now there’s the $64,000 question. Where a good shop to get any quality machine work done? You’d think that there would be at least one here on the Island. However, at the same time it seems
like for some stupid reason most people here would rather throw away the car, rather than fixing it up proper. There are many CNC shops aplenty here, but it seems that they are more focused on
being able to do mass-market stuff and not one time jobs.
[quote=“johnledoe”]Now there’s the $64,000 question. Where a good shop to get any quality machine work done? You’d think that there would be at least one here on the Island. However, at the same time it seems
like for some stupid reason most people here would rather throw away the car, rather than fixing it up proper. There are many CNC shops aplenty here, but it seems that they are more focused on
being able to do mass-market stuff and not one time jobs.[/quote]
I dunno, because I never tried to do it, but I’d expect the situation you describe above is at least as applicable to the UK, and the rest of Europe. Given that cars are disposable by design, by market price structure, and (notably in the UK) by government policy, I’d be very surprised if it usually makes economic sense to get one-off, and probably expensive, machining work done there.
If, unusually, the car isn’t scrapped, then I’d guess the next commonest solution would be to get an exchange engine. This might have been machined (though I’d bet it often isn’t) but if so it’ll have been done on a production-line basis. There’s probably no real market for exchange engines here due to the regulatory obstacles to changing the engine number.
I’d expect one-off machining work to be mostly relevant to classic or customised performance cars. The latter are illegal in Taiwan. One hears of it mostly in the US, which has the most highly developed “car culture” on the planet, but even there I’d bet its in decline.
OTOH I have seen a description, in the “Little Yellow Truck” thread, of a fairly extensive but inexpensive engine rebuild, so it might be possible.
Not sure about here, but you’re wrong about the UK. There’s plenty of machinists there who’ll re-grind cranks, re-bore blocks etc etc.
I’d imagine there’s a market for it here, if not for cars, then for trucks and buses.
Well, I just asked a new friend of mine who’s into working on engines for himself and I asked him about where to find bearings, and if need be, machine work done to the
crankshaft and he suggested this place in Hsinchu (as I live near there) 1F #26 MingSheng Road. Phone number - 03-532-7560. Business name - 森榮 ( <- I didn’t type that)
If your Chinese is good enough, maybe you can ask them if they have an SBF bearing for your engine. If they don’t, maybe if you give them the dimensions of your bearing
they can find one that will fit. I was also specific about you needing machine work done and if you were to bring in the crankshaft they would be able to help you with that so
that it fits the bearing right. Though, I’d make sure that they will help you with that before you bring it in. However, I think it may be possible that they can do that as that
shop also bores out cylinders too.
Thanks. I’ll keep the Hsinchu place in mind, and maybe get the gf to call them (with a script - tricky) if/when the time comes. I’ll ask around locally though. I’d have thought there might be somewhere in Kaoshiung.
I probably wont get a chance to take it apart until the winter break, and the gf wants to get out of Taiwan for that, so maybe not even then.
