Which oil? 1983 LeBaron 2.6l (Mitsubishi engine)

[Hootbro]

Unfortunately these were not the most reliable engines , run 5w30 10w30 no thinner .

Remember have one in a 1986 Dodge Minivan as a rental. Merging onto interstate traffic and it grenaded. Fought tooth and nail with the rental company from trying to charge us for engine replacement. Found out later their back lot was filled with about 8 examples of the same that gave up the ghost.

 

[hemitom]

My uncle bought one of the first if not first one sold in our area in the fall of 83 it had the 2.2 it was a decent car for him but man was it underpowered.
He traded that for an 86 with the 2.6 it was nothing but engine problems from day one traded for an 87 as soon as he could.
He was a die hard mopar guy from the 1950s and on couldn't put him in anything else !
shift to 2011 buys a new rav4 dies within a year I think the shock killed him LOL.

 

[D45678]

In the very early 1990s I worked as the warranty administrator of a Chrysler dealership. The 2.6 engine problems would still pop up from time to time. Generally it was the timing chain guides which would fail due to their being made out of a less than ideal type of plastic which was bathed in hot engine oil. The guides would fail and the engine would make a lot of noise during the early part of the failure which tended to last some time.

When customers would bring their 2.6 equipped vehicle in complaining of this noise, we immediately knew what it was and what the cost of repair was. When presented with the approximately $1,000.00 estimate they were understandable shocked by it and more often than not unable to proceed with the repair. Many times the owners were young parents making payments on a used minivan and they simply couldn't afford the repair.

Typically they would continue to drive the vehicle and often times they could get away with driving it around town for some time before failure. More often than not the failure would happen when someone drove the vehicle faster on a highway. The worst failure I observed was an aviation engineer who was well known to us. He called to say a dash warning light had turned on, but he thought it would be okay to drive home. When it was towed in we took the oil pan off, and tried unsuccessfully to remove the main bearing caps. Using a ten pound sledge hammer did not help. The entire rotating mass was seized.

I can only assume that time has brought about improvements to material used to make the chain guides which were the real source of the 2.6 failures. If your engine gets really noisy like rocks thrown into gears, it is pretty much a guarantee that the guides are failing.

Other than the chain guides it wasn't the worst Chrysler power train component. The later 3.0 V6 had slipping valve guides, the A604 transmission was legendary and was the single largest contributor to my paychecks. I tend to member the 2.6 because of the financial difficulty it caused with some.

 

[Chris142]

In the very early 1990s I worked as the warranty administrator of a Chrysler dealership. The 2.6 engine problems would still pop up from time to time. Generally it was the timing chain guides which would fail due to their being made out of a less than ideal type of plastic which was bathed in hot engine oil. The guides would fail and the engine would make a lot of noise during the early part of the failure which tended to last some time.

When customers would bring their 2.6 equipped vehicle in complaining of this noise, we immediately knew what it was and what the cost of repair was. When presented with the approximately $1,000.00 estimate they were understandable shocked by it and more often than not unable to proceed with the repair. Many times the owners were young parents making payments on a used minivan and they simply couldn't afford the repair.

Typically they would continue to drive the vehicle and often times they could get away with driving it around town for some time before failure. More often than not the failure would happen when someone drove the vehicle faster on a highway. The worst failure I observed was an aviation engineer who was well known to us. He called to say a dash warning light had turned on, but he thought it would be okay to drive home. When it was towed in we took the oil pan off, and tried unsuccessfully to remove the main bearing caps. Using a ten pound sledge hammer did not help. The entire rotating mass was seized.

I can only assume that time has brought about improvements to material used to make the chain guides which were the real source of the 2.6 failures. If your engine gets really noisy like rocks thrown into gears, it is pretty much a guarantee that the guides are failing.

Other than the chain guides it wasn't the worst Chrysler power train component. The later 3.0 V6 had slipping valve guides, the A604 transmission was legendary and was the single largest contributor to my paychecks. I tend to member the 2.6 because of the financial difficulty it caused with some.

I had an 86 d50 with the 2.6. there were too many failures of various components to name. But it needed a valve job @35k and the crank shaft broke @44k. I put a engine with 19k in it from a wreck and gave the truck to my dad who double gasleted an oil filter soon after. Truck was scrapped with less than 50k on it.

 

[D45678]

I had an 86 d50 with the 2.6. there were too many failures of various components to name. But it needed a valve job @35k and the crank shaft broke @44k. I put a engine with 19k in it from a wreck and gave the truck to my dad who double gasleted an oil filter soon after. Truck was scrapped with less than 50k on it.

I wasn't saying the 2.6 was a great engine. I was saying that in comparison to some other Chrysler power train components it wasn't the worst.