thrust bearing failure

after chasing a gremlin for 2 weeks i have done a ton of research and think i may have an answer. failed thrust bearing. the question is why? i had an oil issue that could potentially be the culprit, but it could have been the torque converter. either way she sounds like hell when you turn it over with the starter, and you can't turn it over by hand.
i have been planning to take it to the shop today and let them deal with it. there is enough blood from my knuckles all over the thing for it to be kin. can anyone tell me what i could expect in the realm of replacement? i have never built an engine before so i have no clue how to replace it, or what all is involved. what i do know is i can get a used 4.0 from salvage for $450 warranteed for a year or 12k miles. please help me out before i tow this thing to the shop. TIA
Jon

Rockhound said:

after chasing a gremlin for 2 weeks i have done a ton of research and think i may have an answer. failed thrust bearing. the question is why? i had an oil issue that could potentially be the culprit, but it could have been the torque converter. either way she sounds like hell when you turn it over with the starter, and you can't turn it over by hand.
i have been planning to take it to the shop today and let them deal with it. there is enough blood from my knuckles all over the thing for it to be kin. can anyone tell me what i could expect in the realm of replacement? i have never built an engine before so i have no clue how to replace it, or what all is involved. what i do know is i can get a used 4.0 from salvage for $450 warranteed for a year or 12k miles. please help me out before i tow this thing to the shop. TIA
Jon

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I lost the thrust bearings in my 78 dodge 360,V8, wagon back in 1996. It had over 400,000 miles on it at the time. It sounded terrible when you started it. The shot thrust bearings explained why I had gone through 4 torque converters in short order. You could move the crank shaft in and out at least 1/4 of an inch by grabing the harmonic balancer and pushing and pulling it in and out, front to rear.

They reused the engine block when they rebuilt it. !!!1

Ran about $1,800 turn key, but that was rebulit with all new parts.

It might have made 600,000 miles had it not lost the oil pump twice, once from eating part of the timing chain (180,000 miles), the other from a no start driveway flodding of the engine with a gallon of gas, and dummy me cranking it for an hour trying to figure out why it would not start at 300,000 miles. But it cleaned the engine up real nice.

BTW, I would go with an offer like that for sure. Does the $450 cover instalation or just the motor?

Shot thrust bearing, to me, means big-time over-haul. The bearing surface is the side flange on one of your main bearings. I suppose you could replace that one bearing, but I wouldn't. There's no telling what other issues exist without a thorough inspection of all bearings.