Greetings, folks; I would really appreciate your wisdom!

When I started Rebecca the Raider yesterday morning, she immediately began making a knocking noise I had never heard before. She was last used to stomp a trail in the snow on Saturday; it was the first time I have put her in 4WD this winter, and she laid the tracks easily, going slowly.

She is only used to run into town for water and supplies, about 100 miles per month, and the trail has been easy for the past year. She hasnÆt had to do any real work for three years and I kept her RPMs low even then. She currently has 100,242 miles on her and I had bought her used in 1994 with 48K miles on her.

On the way into town yesterday, the knocking got significantly worse when the engine RPMÆs went up past ~1.4K; the temperature was the usual low setting. No warning lights were on. I got her off the mountain, into the nearest town, and after running errands (in an asphalt-only car), I opened the hood, started her up, and realized immediately that this was a significant problem. She went straight to the nearest and most-trusted repair shop, about eight miles away, keeping the RPMs as low as possible.

She has been going through about a quart of oil every 600 miles and was last topped off 600 miles ago. The shop owner immediately checked the oil as a possible culprit, and she was down about 2 to 2.5 quarts; it should have only been one quart, at most (given the low temperatures), and based on past patterns. Topping the oil off didnÆt stop the knocking.

Based on the knock, she was diagnosed by both shop owners (separately) with:
- a ôworn bottom endö
- a connector rod is hammering on the crankshaft
- the rod bearings are bad
- ôthe bottom end is going outö

I was told that if there was a minimum of three quarts of oil in the engineùwhich I can absolutely verifyùthen a lack of oil was not the problem and I should definitely replace the engine as there was something else that was the problem. They said that she cannot be expected to be able to travel any distance at all without finally ôthrowing a rodö and thus destroying the engine or else the engine will simply just seize. They were amazed I made it back (slowly!) to camp. I have not checked the oil pressure since monitoring the knock and donÆt feel inclined to start her up just to check!; please forgive my carelessness for not logging the oil pressureùthis is all new to me. She will need to go back into town in about ten days.

I have poured through the ôrod knockö search results and found thoughts on rebuilding or replacing the motor, but am not able to do the work myselfùit must be done in the aforementioned shop. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

Blessings and thank yet again!,

Richard Fairbanks