picked up a full z6 swap today minus the ecu for $400. head has been shaved with paperwork. block has 80k miles on it with paperwork. looks clean, only problem i found is the front left and front middle valve cover bolt is stripped inside the head. what are my options for fixing?

btw i drainied the oil from it, it looked nice. and i spun the motor with a wrench and i didn't hear any signs of a spun bearing, but can i tell if the motor is bad by spinning it with a wrench?

 

i doubt your gonna hear if it has a spun bearing by just spinning it unless its really really bad but if its that bad then you shuold see signs of metal shavings

 

k well the oil looked really clean. a lot better than my b7 lol. and the oil inside the head looks good too, and its all clean. just gotta fix the damned stripped holes that the bolts go into, and get an ecu.

 

sucks did he tell you about the strip bolts? cause if he didnt then you dont know how dirty he could have done you he could have just change the oil before selling another indication you can look at is if the spark plug is good

 

no he didn't say anything about them. i found what appears to be a helicoil that wasn't installed right. supposed to use lock tite then screw it into the hole. i guess ill just tap the hole for a larger bolt. and ill check the plugs tomorrow after work. the head did have work apparently, it has a stamp on the side of it.

 

and the oil was dark so it wasn't fresh oil but it wasn't thin or pitch black either

 

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can check for bad bearings before I put the motor in my car without taking the pan and main girdle off?

 

Don't tap for a larger hole bro...
Manufacturer set those sizes for a reason =/

 

A compression test can be perform with a battery attached to the starter positive, ground to engine block, and starter signal to positive on the battery. A leak down test can be perform as well.

 

its not that difficult to drop the oil pan and take a look , a spun bearing should be obvious by burnt /dark area around it.

 

Well I really don't hve any options for this. It's the hole that's stripped not the bolt. It's only for the valve cover anyway so it's not like is anything that has any amount of stress placed on it.

 

update. i ended up just getting a helicoil kit and it worked perfectly. i noticed that all the valve cover bolts were helicoiled already so im not gonna let it worry me. at least he fixed it previously and i tightend it too much probably and killed the heli coil. o well. one thing done.

and on another note i have the bottom end of my b18 put togehter. but thats for a different thread.

 

a helicoil is suppose to be hella strong so idk if he put then on right