my engine trouble investigation

[welly_59]

thought i'd start a thread which i will document my investigation of my recent engine trouble. basic story is engone was making a noise which sounded like bearings of some sort then while driving from work i had no power and the engine cut out, i pulled over to see steam everywhere and a bubbling expansion tank.

I finally got the car home today and am going to do a compression test now, even though i am 100% sure that the head-gasket has gone anyway!

will report back when its done in the next hour or so

[welly_59]

have finished for the night already! couldnt find my sparkplug socket so will have to buy a new one in the morning. i want to have the compression test done and bottom end investigated + head taken off by 4pm. better get to bed now then i think!

[Peebs]

Could be the water pump idler is fewked matey (behind cam cover), specially seeing as you now seem to have a blown head gasket !

What was th reading like on the temp gauge ?

[welly_59]

tempguage was only on half mate, but when it cut out and i pulled over it did go up to about 3/4.

whats this waterpump idler? would it make a noise if buggered?

[welly_59]

right i've just done a compression test and the results are below:

4# 190
3# 160
2# 185
1# 190

they dont look too bad but 3# is a concern i think. anyone got views on this?

next step is to take off the cambelt cover and see if any pulleys etc feel strange

[Jiff Lemon]

try adding a few CC's of oil to the cylinder #3 and repeating the test.

[adamh]

50 cc's enough welly, use a qaurter of coffee mug

[welly_59]

too late now guys the timing belt is halfway off! i've got the top cover off and have taken the belt off the cams. engine mount and crank pulley need to be removed to enable the bottom cover to be removed right? do i need to support the engine while the mount is removed or will the other 3 be sufficient? how the hell am i meant to remove the crank pulley with the engine in the car? no way i can get a puller in there!

[adamh]

3 mounts will be allright but no chance to get crank pulley off. take off front & rear mounts, lower engine down at slant until can get puller on. or owen type crank tool.

don't forget to slip oil into # 3 , should hopefully cure lower compression figure

[adamh]

any pulley down their with shagged bearing feel lumpy, rough, slight noise, will be amplified when running. it doesn't take much...

[welly_59]

i've taken the cambelt off and checked all the pulleys etc and they all feel smooth with no play at all. theres a little bit of a gritty feel to the no1 idler but that wont have caused the problems i've had.

i've also taken the sump off to have a good look at the bottom end but it looks ok to me. no bits in the oil, oil looked fine. I havent had a chance to take the bearings out yet as they are torqued on tight as feck! will be doing that tomorrow morning.

Anything else i should be looking for?

I'm going to be taking the head off to change the headgasket anyway but i need to find out what caused it in the first place!

[mart1975]

will be a good for future reference when you find the fault, have you been round to the guys house who sold you the engine yet welly?

[welly_59]

nah mate i got it 7 hours drive away!

[welly_59]

right, head removal:
any advice on disconnecting the exhaust manifold? do i need to take any oil or coolant lines off?

do the cams have to come out or can i get to all the bolts with the cams in place?

help!

[adamh]

welly, I guess you checked oil & water pulleys too?. the con rod caps nuts should 'crack' off, they take some. I think I used a ring spanner & whacked the end of the spanner to break old age seal, once cracked they will whizz off freely, any chance of pic of the big ends once off?
remember do one at time, scratch outer case across mating point to ensure same position re-assembly, although they should be stamped.

[welly_59]

yep np adam, i'm off to work now so it will be tomorrow.

the waterpump pulley is the one to the right of the crank pulley? if so then it feels fine. its gotta be something causing my troubles though, dont know what yet!!

[Sponge Bob]

Welly - PM me if you want and I can call and talk you through what I did as I had to change the head gasket on mine... I stripped the block right back and rebuilt piece by piece...

[adamh]

here yare

249

[welly_59]

yep thats the one mate, feels fine i think. could it still be noisy when the engines running but not be able to feel it by hand?

[adamh]

if it feels smooth, and there is no play in it, its allright. same for all pulleys, when talking of play its difficult to gauge verbally!.. I mean if it don't wobble 'at-all', its good condition, if it moves say.... a quarter of a millimetre its real bad condition, if it moves half a mil its well f*cked.

if its not any of your pulleys, re-align timing carefully, re-assemble. which gets the thinking going again, what could be making the noise?. not an exaust rattle is it... or piston slap? , next step bottom end.

its a complete bugger not bieng abled to listen in first person

[welly_59]

what could have caused the overheating though apart from a dodgy waterpump?

[Jiff Lemon]

Checked your rad is ok? Can you see anything on the headgasket?

Did you see/hear the running before you originally dropped it in?

[welly_59]

its been in the car since january jiff, i didnt have any problem with it until a month ago when it started making that noise

[adamh]

what could have caused the overheating though apart from a dodgy waterpump?

my experiences of overheating excluding the water pump bieng buggered;

dizzy & ignition timing,
coolant bleeding,
thermostat,
temperature switch that actuate rad fans (on 4age) not sure on 3s set up yet, but if you had your rad fans on constant, and it still overheats it has to be timing or bleeding i would have thought.

[welly_59]

this investigation is going a lot slower than i hoped guys, i've been so busy in work that i havent had much chance to do anything. i took the caps off the rods this morning though and will have some pics of the bearings for u in a few minutes if you wanna critique them please!

[welly_59]

here we go.

all 4:
http://f10.putfile.com/7/19110054384.jpg (http://www.putfile.com)

#4
http://f10.putfile.com/7/19110074470.jpg (http://www.putfile.com)

#3
http://f10.putfile.com/7/19110083229.jpg (http://www.putfile.com)

#2
http://f10.putfile.com/7/19110092341.jpg (http://www.putfile.com)

#1
http://f10.putfile.com/7/19110110131.jpg (http://www.putfile.com)

[adamh]

good man :-)
i'll study later, on pda now!. any chance of pic of journals wiped clean?

[welly_59]

the bits they sit on the crank?

[adamh]

yes matey, big round lumps of solid steel that these bearings sit on. known as 'crank journals' and terminology used also.. 'main journals' for the mains.. but dont show me the mains!. wipe them clean before taking picture please, not dry, but clean so i can see the surface well. nice big pix :mrgreen: :praise2: 1024x768 if poss, i can see in high resolution, then edit down for the pic police after saving to HDD

[welly_59]

i havent been able to take pix yet as my camera flash wouldnt work, they all look fine though. no visible scoring or discoloration

[adamh]

well.. discolouration will never be present on this type of bearing.
them shells dont look too bad mike. there are a few scratches from grit in the oil, but they look allright, i would only be slightly concerned with #4 journal, as there is a small witness on the right hand side .. i would check that part of the crank and see what you can see there. if pictures are possible, i have a good trained eye for detail matey ;) , but if your sure, i can do no more.

can you 'feel' any of them lines on the shells there? like any dips .. check same on crank

[welly_59]

i've tried to feel for anything but all seems smooth, if anything i've damaged them more by trying to feel for bumps in them!

so have we come to the conclusion that its not the bearings that was making my engine make noises then?

[adamh]

youve got no worries there mike. well done for checking mate, you know know whats involved in replacing them, and youve seen a set half way through life.

if one of your journals had been knackered, or a bearing knackered, it would be much much worse than any of them, i was trying to find an example.

if you keep the oil & filter changed regular, should get tons more life out of them mate

[adamh]

found some pix. extreme examples maybe.. but this is what your looking for to make noises like that:

fooked crank;

http://www.yoshimune.com/748/crank/crank2_l.jpg


this chap said the one on the left was shagged (of course).. one on right was shagged, but not nearly as much, both ones to change i say. see.. yours do not compare to these.
and hopefully your crank is dead flat and shiny and no scores / scratches.. and not like the crank pic above :-)

and shagged bearings
http://www.yoshimune.com/748/crank/bearings3_l.jpg

[welly_59]

whats making the bloody awful racket in my engine then mush! could it be my waterpump even though it feels ok?

[adamh]

take it off and have a look, i do it everynight :).

[welly_59]

do i need to remove the oilcooler to get the waterpump off?

[adamh]

i dont know mate :shrug: .
that bloody sound tho, keep listening too it, its like a radio phone in competition. youve got another car eh, change the water pump, then check the head out.

[welly_59]

what do i use to seal the sump back up?

re-assembly of the bearings is just a matter of putting some oil on them and re-torqing to spec right?

[adamh]

use 'sump sealer' available in squeezy tubes from motor factors around 7 quid. pay attention to getting even 7-8mm run on middle to outside edge, wipe excess off after, seal bolt holes too. should say in bgb. bearings... clean well, and wipe with oil, same for journals, attention on re-assembling caps right way round and on correct rod. re-torque in 2-3 stages, checking a fourth time.

[MegatronUK]

Just use instant gasket/sealant for the sump - there is no gasket on them.

Agree with Adam, those bearing shells look fine - just normal wear.

[welly_59]

i've got my bottom end back together now and have managed to take the waterpump off to have a closer look at it. It seems fine but i've got a new one to put on anyway. I'm in the middle of taking the cat and elbow off at the moment but it looks like im going to have to remove the front engine mount to get the passenger side support bar off gggrrrr! all the other bolts came off easily enoug though.

Once i've done that it'll be off with its head!

[welly_59]

right i've got the cat and elbow off and its been chucked straight into the bin, will be buying myself a nice shiny downpipe when its all working again.

how many studs are there attaching the exhaust manifold to the engine? i've got 7 off but it doesnt seem to want to budge!

anyone able to give me help on removing the head? what do i need to remove first and what can i leave on etc? help please!

[adamh]

http://www.adamhutchison.co.uk/graphics/15.jpg

there go, does that help?

ive not removed the head so somebody else best advised matey.

[Peebs]

Could there be some sort of brace bar still attatched to it ? Have a good look around for steady braces matey 7 studs it is...either that or whack it with a rubber mallet on a side/top load basis :)

[welly_59]

got the exhaust manifold off at last! whatever people tell you, with the mk1 you need to remove the turbo from the manifold or its impossible to get out! theres just not enough room between the firewall and block to manouvre past. it took me ages to try and seperate turbo/manifold then as i had nothing to steady them against

[welly_59]

All that left now to remove the head is intake manifold removal and camshaft removal. If i had a long hexbit socket then i would be able to leave the cams in but with a short bit socket one of the head bolts is really awkward to eget a good seat on. I've removed the bolts from the intake manifold but still have 3 nuts left to get off. I've found the intake manifold quite a bitch to get off as access and space is limited to say the least!

Has anyone noticed that the underside of their intake manifold is covered in loads of oily scum or is it just my engine? it seemed like i had to put my fingers into sludge an inch deep to unplug the tvsv etc!

[adamh]

not noticed any oily stuff on mine mike and it was pretty dirty as ye can see!. possibly flicked up from the gearbox diff seal or driveshaft, didnt you change your diff seal?!

take the cams off careful mate, release equally along the caps little bit at time, you know the score mike.

[welly_59]

i've finally got the head off and been able to have a look at it today. Firstly theres no sign of the headgasket having split or ruptured, is it still possible that the gasket needed doing? secondly the waterpump that was on my car seemed to be fine, no play and spun quite nicely. thirdly my big ends seem to be fine so its no them causing the knocking noise!

so im pretty stumped now to what could have caused my problems.

in short:
engine started making a rattley noise which progressed into an audible knock-knock sound. it would sometimes be a bit funny starting as well. then one day driving home from work the engine had no power(like 30mph top speed!) and finally conked out with loads of steam coming out of the enginebay via the expansion tank.

bigends seem to be fine as does the waterpump, also the hg has no visible problems.

Should i just change the gasket/waterpump etc and hope that its all fixed on re-assembly or should i take a closer look at some other bits and pieces before i start putting it back together with new pieces?!?

help me pleeeease!

[superchargedsam]

welly your gonna have to change the gasket now anyway fella ! at the time was there any chance of air lock in the cooling system or anything like that ? as for knocking its defo not a lose mount somewhere ! I know these sound simple but now you have checked more or less everything that can be checked might be worth looking at the basics again ! Take it 24mm spanner fitted ?

[welly_59]

yep spot on mate! well for the exhaust cam anyway, the intake cam seemed to be a smidgeon too big so had to force it on a bit!

i dont think tis a loose mount sam, i think all these problems are inter-related somehow but not sure exactly how! there could have been an airlock in the system but you can never be sure of that. If i put this engine back together with new bits and the noise is still there im going to burn the car i think!

could i have HG problems with no visible sign on the gasket of failure?

[lodgeman]

can you post pics up of the head gasket - both sides?

[welly_59]

yep 2 minutes and they'll be up

[superchargedsam]

its possible the head might be slightly warped and allowing gases and liquids to bypass the gasket when hot but would be a noticable warp for that to happen !

[welly_59]

http://s111.photobucket.com/albums/n123/welly_59/

[Paul Woods]

welly ive had a good scan at the gasket,both sides and there are some well dodgy areas that look like they could have been potentially blowing...unless its just oil in the pic but theres some sooty areas here and there where i wouldnt like to say if it was sealing properly....i think you have got to rebuild it now mate.

[welly_59]

what do you mean by rebuild paul?

[Paul Woods]

sorry mate,just rebuild what you have taken apart

[welly_59]

anyone think i should replace the bearings and rings while the engine is stripped down this far?

[adamh]

no, but i think you should change the gasket, both left and right sides look iffy. it dosent take much to blow matey, sometimes very difficult to see.. my clio you could barely barely recognise the blow..

youve checked the bearings id be happy with them, and youve had it compression tested.. in which one cylinder was low right??!!.. which one was slightly low ?

*edit, its #3 that was 160 psig where the others were 190.. let me take another look at the pics..

[welly_59]

cheers adam, lemme know ur thoughts please dude. dont you think changing the rings now would make sense then? rather than having to do it in the future at some point?!?!

[adamh]

cant really see much altho #3 piston does look different to ones next to it, maybe the rings arent so hot. what you could do welly, is stick a new gasket on, slip some oil down all of the cylinders, re-assemble head with gasket paste stuff etc.
re-compression test it, hopefully your #3 might get a bit better than it is.

you could stick in a set of rings now welly, not sure how much mrT sell one single cylinder for. but.. you'd need to bust the glaze on the bore so the rings bed in properly. if you didnt bust the glaze.. the rings would never bed into shape properly. its just a precautionery measure im talking of mike.. you need not change rings. what does the underside of the head look like matey?? pics if at-all possible

[adamh]

maybe timing caused overheat & knock. mike.. if you w anted to put a new set of rings in i wouldnt stop you!.. its always worth it on a nice engine like the 3sgte.. i'll talk you through it if you go that way. possibly 60-80 quid a set from T.
although they certainly woudnt cause the overheat & knock

[welly_59]

i think #3 might look different cos i tried pouring some oil in it to see if it made a difference to the compression but i poured waaay too much in and couldnt get a useful reading lol.

i'll get a pic of the head underside now for u

[welly_59]

http://s111.photobucket.com/albums/n123/welly_59/

head pics now in the album. head 1 is piston 1 area etc etc

so you all reckon new gasket, waterpump and re-assemble? if this noise is still there after this im going to be right pissed off with the damn thing!

[adamh]

i'd really make sure i got timed up with a gun once i had set the timing as best i could manually them extra degrees could make a big difference to cylinder temperature.

[adamh]

excellent pics mike. see that #3 still looking a bit cokey. forgetting that.. look at the dull grey lands inbetween shiney bits (the valve seat).. this is where your valve stem makes contact .. them inlet valves are looking nice.. well they would do!.. they dont get as scorchingly hot as exhaust. i'd expect the exhaust valve stems are filled with sodium too just out of interest which disperses heat. once your cams are back on welly see if you cant index them round to open the exhaust valves in turn, and check if the seats are all o.k and not pitted or cracked, particularly on #3. i'm not sure if they open much... ive not played with 3sgte head, prolly 4-5mm or so throw, maybe enough to get a look in and check for cracks & pits, easy job. you just might be abled to wiggle the stems aswell once out to see if the valve guides are a tight fit, and not wankered. although, maybe tension on valve stem spring and collets is too much to allow hand movement.. try it out mate

[welly_59]

lol thought i'd better tell you that the 'shiny' inlet valves are actually empty, i'd already removed them when u requested a pic! i'll be giving the head a good going over before re-assembly anyway adam, its getting skimmed tomoorow and i'll be fitting new oil seal and guides on the weekend

[adamh]

^^ right on mate :mrgreen: :praise2: engines deserve love :blush:
i did notice the valves werent present!. i was refering to the land above and below the dull grey band.. which i n turn is the bit that gets lapped in. (psycho uber subconscious teaching :blabla: :mrgreen: :D )

:praise2:

[adamh]

the stem seals (oil seals ala mike) they come off with a good pair of pliers and careful grip from above twist and pull gently, they pop off. and when fitting they 'pop on' they are the little parts at the bottom of the valve with little spring around them. the guides.. your not changing them eh fella??.. not the metal pieces that hold the actual stem?.. me thinks you meant the stem seals, and oil seals.. for the camshafts?

[welly_59]

i was thinking of doing the full works while the heads off tbh. i really dont wanna go through the hassle of stripping this engine again as its been a really arkward job!

I still need to get to the bottom of what was causing the noise though adam, i dont want the problem appearing again! im seriously debating getting an overbore with forged pistons while i've got everything in pieces as it makes sense in a financially expensive sort of way lol. only problem with me doing that is that i cant drop the engine and gbox as i dont have any lifting facilities at home. I was thinking of maybe trying to seperate the block from the box while leaving the gearbox in the car. dont know if its possible but i should then be able to get it out from the car seeing as there's no head or manifolds attached to it. wanna make sure its working ok first though.

[Marksman]

Stick it all back together, drive it down to Newport and I'll take the engine out for you :freak3: (Oh and steal your new shiny bits whilst I'm at it.)

O.S.

[Sponge Bob]

I've just put some 3S-GTE oil stem seals on ebay...

If you want them I can remove them and send them down to you?

[adamh]

here here.. good idea owen. welly, why not do a standard rebuild? it is possible to do that in situ, with a cylinder hone tool that attatches to you drill. much cheaper than a set of forgies / over bore / bigs/ mains / rods / steel gasket. your looking at an easy 700+ for that kinda stuff. i'd say a standard set of rings / gasket and head set is going t cost just inside 200 plus cylinder hone tool. set of big ends 44 quid. i built me renault in situ

[welly_59]

i've got a head gasket set already adam, cost me ?55 with headbolts. Toyota price on rings is ?87 btu i've got a local firm who are ringing me back with prices for bigends and rings late on today. I can get forge pistons, rings and an overbore for ?350 all in but i wont do that unless the cylinders are worn. I'll check the bores for roundness/wear and take it from there. as i said, i really dont wanna be doing this job twice lol. depending on the price of the rings from the local company i'll be doing the basic rebuild this weekend

[adamh]

acl big ends come in the usual 3 sizes mike,, my friend got back to me.

so how are you getting on?