The short version is that the thrust bearing in my 426 Hemi crate engine is toast (>.038) so I am looking for a good shop to disassemble, inspect, repair, reassembled and dyno it for me. I live in the San Francisco bay area and would prefer a shop that is within driving distance (5 hours or so). Any suggestions?

The longer version is that I purchased a lightly used crate Hemi that came out of a car with an automatic that was sold after the owner passed away. I checked one rod, one main, thrust and borescoped the cylinders. Everything was within spec so I installed a Mike Jones solid lifter cam, broke in the cam and reinstalled the new valve springs. Fast forward, I installed it in my AMC Gremlin with a Ram twin disc clutch/A883 and loaded it on the trailer to do some shakedown runs at a local autocross event. After four 1 mins runs we noticed the oil pressure was all over the place going from 0-60psi. We loading it on the trailer and started searching when we got it back to the shop. I cut open the filter and there was some copper and way more metal than I like to see so the first thing we checked was the thrust bearing and it was WAY out of spec.

Im assuming the crankshaft wasn't machined very well and it was fine with an auto but my twin disc clutch caused the issue to arise.

member Cab_Burge is within your driving distance (south oregon). he has more than enough hemi builds under his belt to be able to help you

Bob Lambeck


Location: 8810 Yolanda Ave, Northridge, CA 91324
Phone: (818) 772-0200

QMP in Chatsworth CA (Northern LA area)

Penella in Modesto CA

Joey Groose in Lodi CA

My top 3 choices

Dustin Lee, Lambeck, Speigel and a lot of notable others do their dyno work at QMP. All good choices! Mt. View Performance has a lot of hemi experience as well.

Steve wann can help you Modesto ca

Pettis Performance would be my go to guy

You knocked the crankshaft into the thrust bearing of middle bearing when You installed the stick transmission, no end play. More names: Don Little, Westley, CA. Richard Nedbal (He's got an EFI 'bolt on' business but the name escapes Me. But He knows Hemi motors. Bob Mazzolini, Riverside, CA can help for directions. What exactly You going to do with the car/motor? You can spend a surpringly large amount of money on motor re-do if You're not careful.

Thank you all for the quick replies. Looks like I will be making some phone calls next week.

That is possible but I remember check everything twice when I was setting up the bellhousing but it will definitely need to be checked again. I emailed Richard but he said he has been out of the game to long and couldn't really point me in a good direction. I know anytime a hemi gets opened up it is very easy to empty out a person's wallet so I don't want to do this again.

The car is setup as a toy aka to be able to do a lot of events but not really specialized. I plan on autocrossing, Virgina City hill climb, drag race it a little and cruise to a couple car and coffee events. The car is setup with a Control Freak front suspension, Winters quickchange rear with leaf springs, sliders, Caltracs, 285s in the front and 335 rears. The engine is has a Mike Jones custom ground solid lifter cam, lash caps, valve spring, Air Gap intake, twin Holley 750 Street Demon carbs, 3 quart oil accumulator and everything else is basically stock on the engine .

Danny Brewer in Reno NV,DB cylinder heads. He is very good at what he does. (775)292-0951

Wann in Modesto...

What I said was:
Thrust bearing issues are usually externally caused. The crank was pushed by the tranny/clutch. If that's your only problem, I'd just change that bearing shell and fix the source of whatever is pushing the crank around. There are some tricks you can do to get more oil to the thrust surface but that's up to the builder.

If He has 'copper' colored debris in the oil filter, He probably chewed up the journal face of the crankshaft at the minimum as well as the bearing (been there, done that in a dyno session). The motor needs to come apart to do a proper autopsy and get the metal out of the oil passages. It's worse than anticipated right now.

How about Richard Nedbal ??

That's me (Mopar_Rich). Been there done that ... LOL

Plenty of good Norcal names already mentioned.
Lambeck did my Hemi back in 1988, still going strong. We had a good relationship. HOWEVER, about 5 years later he did a race 340 for me that was full of errors & problems - oil pressure (clearances), valve notches machined THROUGH the domes, a mishmash of wrong & under-torqued bottom-end fasteners, etc - that we found on its post-mortem after it kicked a rod out on pass #3. Looked like it'd been built by his gardener, and he charged me $10,000. He said "tough sh*#", but offered me a T-shirt later at the track...

Pettis Performance.............760-244-4415..........

And wrote a book about it !!!

I know this is an old thread but I finally had time to pull the engine to take a look at the carnage. Just as I suspected the thrust bearing is toast to the point the crank was starting to touch the face of the main caps but didnt do any damage to the block. I verified the clutch was not pushing on the crank while disengaged.

I got a little history lesson in the process of the inspection. Mopar increased the face of the thrust bearing in 73 but that didnt affect the Hemi because it was already out of production. Fast forward to the production of the crate engines and Mopar kept the small thrust bearing face. I believe the combination of the poor machine work, small face thrust bearing with a plain flat thrust surface and the twin disc increased pressure on the surface was responsible for killing it.

Now for the best solution? I am waiting for my new crank to show so I can see if the crank has enough area on the thrust to have the block machined to accept the large area thrust bearing or if I am stuck with the small area thrust bearing. If I am stuck with the small area thrust does anyone have any recommendations where I should change to the style with oil passages and thrust pads or the style with scallopes taken out of the inner face while retaining the outer plain face?