Good day,

Working on doing a poor man's engine rebuild on my 1999 p38 that has a vin number that corresponds to the Gem's ERR6438 timing front cover even though it's a Bosch engine. I suspect it was an early production 99 that was still using gems engine blocks.

Long story short, I was getting some knocking at lower rpm once the engine was hot and when I used a thicker oil like 15w40 the knock would go away and engine oil pressure was within spec using a mechanical gauge. I've started the rebuild by pulling the engine and stuffing some new standard size main and rod bearings into the engine twithought any machining of the crank as it still looked good and only the top shells of the rod bearings were showing any wear/copper.

Unfortunately my front cover didn't fair as well, the inside of the oil pump housing was completely scored and scratched as well as the pump itself. This brings me to my next topic, sourcing a new front cover twithought spending too much. LR direct (https://www.lrdirect.com/err6438-sup...anded-britpart) is offering and aftermarket Britpart front cover for significantly less money than a Genuine. Anyone have any experience with an aftermarket front cover? It's such a critical part...






Thanks

 

I would suggest that it’s critical. I’ve heard of bad aftermarket front covers. I would try to get a good used one. Try someone like roverguy.com
Also, as your engine is identical to a Disco 2 engine, you could post this in the D2 section of this forum. There’s way more traffic there.

 

thanks just made a post there.

 

I saw it there. Hopefully you get some more answers.