I appreciate your response, (though if anyone has an informed answer to the question I asked I'd appreciate that even more.)

I don't like the sound of it much (I'm no expert, but I THINK it sounds worse) and it was run dry, so some damage would be expected. I have to fix the oil leak , so the sump has to come off anyway.

I don't have an oil pressure guage fitted, unfortunately.

If it has been run dry,you certainly need to remove all the bearing caps-examine the crank,and if no serious damage,fit a new set of shells to both big-ends and mains-and don't forget the thrust washer if there is one.

You should consult a service manual to find out first if the bolts holding the bearing caps are single use type. Unlikely, but some are. Assuming they are NOT,

# then it is okay to remove each big end cap in turn and then replace. Taking pictures won't help though - you need to be able to precisely measure the diameter of the journals to determine the amount of wear and whether the journal is still round. Visual examination may reveal scoring or excess wear if you know what to look for, but visual is less than half the story.

# removing the main bearing caps will do you no good however, as you will not be able to measure the diameter of the journals with the crank in place. You will only be reliant on visual inspection of the bottom half of the bearing.

If you can measure the big end journals and show the (big end and bottom main) bearings to someone who knows what they are looking at and all is well then you could infer that the main bearings are good and put it back together. if all is not well, then a strip out of the engine should follow as it can be infered that there is likely to be damage elsewhere.

Of more concern than the bottom end bearings is the camshaft. Oil starvation here will cause very rapid overheating of the lobe nose and wear through of the hardened layer can be extremely rapid. I once took apart a Rover V8 where the bottom end was perfect, but the cam lobes were worn almost round!! Any bluing of the cam noses indicates replacement or a regrind is in order.

Thanks.

have a service manual for the CB20 and one for the CB23 engines. Mine is apparently a CB22. I've been told there are no significant (?) differences, and I can't find any between the CB20 and CB23.

The bearing cap bolts don't seem to be torque-to-yield, and I'd hope they wouldn't be on an engine design of this age.

The manual gives a procedure for replacing / servicing the pistons in situ (which I've done on a Marina 1800 B series), but it doesn't give one for replacing the main bearings in situ, (which I believe is possible on some engines) so that may not be possible. I have, however, heard of it being done on a Charade GTi.

At the moment I just wan't to check on the damage as best I can without a full strip-down. Visual examination of the main journals (and bearing half shells) may be the best I can do realistically at this time.

These cars are rare here (in Taiwan) now so a writeoff engine may be hard to find (as are competent garages, especially ones I could communicate with). Engine swaps are effectively illegal here, but I note from the manual that the engine number is located on the cylinder head, so a bottom-end swap might be possible.

Realistically, however, I probably have as good a chance of finding another of these cars intct as I have of finding another engine, so that'd be the favored option if a rebuild is required.

The cams look OK, for what that's worth.