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I have a 89 Trooper with a 2.6 engine with the number 3 cylinder knocking. The engine has 136,000 miles on it, is it worth it to put a crankshaft kit on it or just rebuild the whole motor. The guy I bought it off of said he put a new head on it already.

it could be that the fuel injector is clogged and that the piston is drying out and causing the knocking

Since I just built a 2.6L in a pickup, with the same problem, you might find you'll need an overbore. Mine had 1/4" of sludge coating the oil pickup screen. If yours has the aluminum oil pan, the small metal sump can be removed an access this screen. It's iffy but, you may be able to access the #3 rod bearing cap. IF it has just started knocking and the crank isn't damaged......it may be salvagable, w/o a teardown. Especially if you can get a micrometer on the crank to check it. It can be polished with 320 then 400 grit wet and dry sandpaper. The screen can be scraped, wire brushed and then flushed with some good spray carb cleaner to clean it right up. Either way, you'll get your best prices on engine parts from hubler_engines on eBay. I've also got his phone # somewhere. Everybody has there own oil but, after using Havoline during my early racing years, I found it to leave less residue, no varnish and virtually no wear on moving parts. Considering an aircooled VW runs almost 100 degrees hotter than a water cooled engine, I recently tore a street engine down, with 312,000 miles on it, that I built in '71 for the owner's satisfaction. We replaced the bearings, the exhaust valves and rings. Bearing surfaces were perfect, cam and lifters good and so was the oil pump. Very unusual. I used it in all my customers cars and never had a complaint. Good luck on your engine repair.