Kik

2005 TC 2.4L automatic. Over the winter I took off for work on one of the coldest days, warmed car up for about 15 minutes put in drive then when I hit the gas, I heard a pop, I figured maybe ice under the tires. I got about a mile from home going up a hill and the car died, pulled over once I topped the hill and could not get it restarted, it just clicked. Towed home and son recharged the battery, for some reason it died, it's only a year old. He started the car and said it was running real rough and knocking. Left it alone til today, drained the oil which only had 300 miles on it. Pulled the oil pan because the oil looked like graphite. I'm going to attach some pictures, maybe someone can tell me PROBABLY, what happened before I go any further..

Kik

Ok, Just in case anyone was interested, the pictures above are of the counterbalance shafts for the motor vibration. Two if the bearings on the far side of the shaft go eaten, and ground down to the point the CB shafts ate through the Baffle housing. I have removed the shafts, bearings and all the material from the inside when the fiber gear or whatever it was got eaten. I had to pull the oil pickup tube and dismantle that pull the screen out and clean it because the gear and bearing shavings were stuck in the screen. I found the one oil journal that fed all 4 bearings, I tapped it and installed a set screw to stop the oil flow there. I re-installed the Baffle (housing), not really knowing if the housing served a purpose or not, I figured using it as a baffle for anti-foaming couldn't hurt. I am now cleaning the oil pan out and scraping the gasket off of it. Hopefully if the rain goes away, I'll have it all back together by this weekend and see how it runs.

bbsciontc

Jeez, that does not look fun. Good luck to you. I hope removing the balance shafts and plugging the oil feed works out.

undivided

now that you've figured out what broke its time to also figure out WHY it broke before something else goes. you had good oil pressure prior to this? the extended idling when oil pressure is the lowest could definitely ruin components

Kik

Yes, I figured out what happened for the most part.

A little back story. My son bought this car used. it had 80k on it when he bought it, the PO beat the snot out of this car and never did any real PM to it, from the looks of the inside of the engine it rarely had oil changes, I found this out when I had to redo the top end for the stretched (stripped) head bolts.

So even though my son did all the PM's after he bought it, it really didn't help much, I mean the car does have 155K on it now, which is ok, but these engines should go at least 200k IMO.

So what I found is the Fiber? gear on the counterbalance shafts had given up, lost teeth, and broke in half and the bearings failed in the shafts also. Now whether the bearing failure came 1st or the gear failure did, I do not know, but there are four bearings on the shafts, one on each end, the 2 nearest the oil pump were in great shape, the 2 farthest from the pump were wearing. the bearing that was the worst was the rear on exhaust side, completely bottom half of bearing gone and shaft was eating into housing. I can tell you, the oil ports in the housing were not plugged up, but the side that was eaten into may have been at one point, it's only a guess though.

So, I got it all back together, flushed out motor, new oil and filter. Started right up. no low oil pressure and no more vibration than before the balance shafts went bad. There is still a problem though, it starts to knock at around 2000 rpm, so it looks like I'm going to have to either cut my losses or tear it down again. I can't tell if it's coming from top, bottom front or back, kind of sounds like middle of the motor. I'm assuming it's either a crank bearing, connecting rod bearings or a bad wrist pin on one of the pistons.