Fortunately, there is a fool proof way of knowing your BEBs need doing. And it doesn't need any tools nor diagnostic kit. As there's no way to tell if they are about to go, you should hear a clattering, then a bang, followed by a judder, complete loss of power and 10 lts of dinosaur juice will be spread over the carriageway. Pop the bonnet and you should be able to see the inside of the crank case to confirm that indeed one of the con rods has gone through the block. All you need to do then is simply replace the engine. Shouldn't really cost much more than £2500 all in.
I swapped the BEBs in both mine, because I wasn't confident that I'd be able to diagnose the shattered engine correctly. Until I saw Matt's that is. It's quite distinctive.
Sorry JLJ, not meant as being critical honestly. But on a 12v, change the BEBs unless you know they have been done. You would have to strip the bottom off the engine and take them out to be able to know if they needed doing. There simply isn't a test for this. OK if they looked spot on you could put them back in again. But given that you had gone to all that trouble, it would be a bit pointless to save the cost of new bearings. Very few sets have been pulled from a 12v with no signs on them. Even a set of 24v ones had signs IIRC.
My last one came to me with 69k on the clock and a couple of the shells were very poor.
Chris
