Engine mystery
09-26-2017, 10:22 PM
#1
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: Vallejo CA
Posts: 4
Engine mystery
So I'm posting only because I'm not really sure what to pinpoint my previous problem on, especially because I may deal with it again in the future if I don't resolve it.
So a few weeks ago I was driving during one of California's craziest heatwaves, on my way back from Sacramento heading towards Bay Area. Anyway, almost reaching my destination after about 45 minutes of driving in free-flow traffic, my check engine light all of a sudden showed up. I was confused, as I didn't see any other light show up such as temp, battery, gas, etc.. I have a bluetooth OBD2 reader always plugged in the plug, and as I'm driving I'm trying to open the app and at least know why the check engine light turned on.. I was having connection error so it was taking a few minutes to get anything. Anyway, while trying to configure it, I start smelling burned oil and was hoping it wasn't me, looked in my rearview and no smoke so thought maybe it was the guy in front of me with an oil leak of some sort.. Well within about 1-2 minutes, I start feeling a loss of power and some metal rattling sound (not like a broken chain, more like a metal plate vibrating against another fixture).. So I took the exit that was coming up, pretty much at a roll (engine shut off) until I can stop the car at a safe location. Immediately after this incident, I tried restarting the engine and it sounded like the starter was just freely spinning (whirrrrrrrrrrr).. not your typical starter/cranking sound. I thought the engine wasn't turning while the starter was spinning. I popped the hood and found that my coolant had shot out of the reservoir tank (it was bone dry!), but no leaks otherwise. Checked the dipstick and oil cap for milkiness, nothing..
Well, long story short, towed the car home. Had my wife crank the motor while checking the engine to find out that the engine is cranking over while starter is spinning
.. wtf?
anyway, I expected the worst and figured I blew the engine and that the engine has no compression all across (I did not test the compression).. So I bought a replacement engine from a local dismantlers, and installed it over the weekend. I just fired it up last night and thank goodness it did because I was initially having starting issues.
But I'm still confused as to why the car died on me to begin with.. I'm pretty sure coolant was topped off, and i just did an oil change on the thing a few days prior. I did, however run the gas really low that day because I wanted to fill up at a gas station about 10 miles away (freeway miles). But not sure how that will blow the engine.
So I'm just concerned that although I have a good running engine again, is there something that may have caused the old engine to blow that may be a threat to this engine? Last thing I want is something stupid causing damage to my engine and leave me stranded on the side of the road.
Sorry, I know its a lot to read, but I tried to keep out as much unnecessary information as possible. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.
As of now, I'm stumped.
So a few weeks ago I was driving during one of California's craziest heatwaves, on my way back from Sacramento heading towards Bay Area. Anyway, almost reaching my destination after about 45 minutes of driving in free-flow traffic, my check engine light all of a sudden showed up. I was confused, as I didn't see any other light show up such as temp, battery, gas, etc.. I have a bluetooth OBD2 reader always plugged in the plug, and as I'm driving I'm trying to open the app and at least know why the check engine light turned on.. I was having connection error so it was taking a few minutes to get anything. Anyway, while trying to configure it, I start smelling burned oil and was hoping it wasn't me, looked in my rearview and no smoke so thought maybe it was the guy in front of me with an oil leak of some sort.. Well within about 1-2 minutes, I start feeling a loss of power and some metal rattling sound (not like a broken chain, more like a metal plate vibrating against another fixture).. So I took the exit that was coming up, pretty much at a roll (engine shut off) until I can stop the car at a safe location. Immediately after this incident, I tried restarting the engine and it sounded like the starter was just freely spinning (whirrrrrrrrrrr).. not your typical starter/cranking sound. I thought the engine wasn't turning while the starter was spinning. I popped the hood and found that my coolant had shot out of the reservoir tank (it was bone dry!), but no leaks otherwise. Checked the dipstick and oil cap for milkiness, nothing..
Well, long story short, towed the car home. Had my wife crank the motor while checking the engine to find out that the engine is cranking over while starter is spinning
.. wtf?anyway, I expected the worst and figured I blew the engine and that the engine has no compression all across (I did not test the compression).. So I bought a replacement engine from a local dismantlers, and installed it over the weekend. I just fired it up last night and thank goodness it did because I was initially having starting issues.
But I'm still confused as to why the car died on me to begin with.. I'm pretty sure coolant was topped off, and i just did an oil change on the thing a few days prior. I did, however run the gas really low that day because I wanted to fill up at a gas station about 10 miles away (freeway miles). But not sure how that will blow the engine.
So I'm just concerned that although I have a good running engine again, is there something that may have caused the old engine to blow that may be a threat to this engine? Last thing I want is something stupid causing damage to my engine and leave me stranded on the side of the road.
Sorry, I know its a lot to read, but I tried to keep out as much unnecessary information as possible. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.
As of now, I'm stumped.
09-29-2017, 11:13 PM
#2
Senior Member
SL Member
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Mesa, AZ USA
Posts: 706
Do you still have the old engine? or did you part exchange it?
Check for holes in any of the engine cases - that's usually a bad sign.
If you, take the valve cover off and try turning the engine over via the big bolt on the main pulley. Do the cams turn? Do you have a cam chain still there? Any teeth missing on the sprockets?
If the cams are turning, check for compression (just take the plugs out don't bother with a gage).
Check for valve clearance. Measure when the lobe is pointing away from the valve. If you have one or more that have gone to zero, that would be a sure sign of burned valves.
Check for holes in any of the engine cases - that's usually a bad sign.
If you, take the valve cover off and try turning the engine over via the big bolt on the main pulley. Do the cams turn? Do you have a cam chain still there? Any teeth missing on the sprockets?
If the cams are turning, check for compression (just take the plugs out don't bother with a gage).
Check for valve clearance. Measure when the lobe is pointing away from the valve. If you have one or more that have gone to zero, that would be a sure sign of burned valves.
10-01-2017, 01:56 PM
#3
Member
SL Member
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Texas
Posts: 25
What Rich said.
From your description, I would be led to believe you have a blown head gasket. They don't always immediately start mixing oil and coolant when this happens. If the engine spins by hand and the crank and cams turn in sync and stay in time, this is probably your issue.
If the timing is off by even a tooth, your chain could have skipped and taken out a few valves. This would also cause all of your symptoms, plus is more likely to cause a CEL before the driveability issues started to show.
Either way, I don't think there's much concern of it causing an issue with the newer engine. Check your cooling system to make sure it's still in good working order first.
From your description, I would be led to believe you have a blown head gasket. They don't always immediately start mixing oil and coolant when this happens. If the engine spins by hand and the crank and cams turn in sync and stay in time, this is probably your issue.
If the timing is off by even a tooth, your chain could have skipped and taken out a few valves. This would also cause all of your symptoms, plus is more likely to cause a CEL before the driveability issues started to show.
Either way, I don't think there's much concern of it causing an issue with the newer engine. Check your cooling system to make sure it's still in good working order first.
10-02-2017, 08:39 PM
#4
Junior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: Vallejo CA
Posts: 4
Do you still have the old engine? or did you part exchange it?
Check for holes in any of the engine cases - that's usually a bad sign.
If you, take the valve cover off and try turning the engine over via the big bolt on the main pulley. Do the cams turn? Do you have a cam chain still there? Any teeth missing on the sprockets?
If the cams are turning, check for compression (just take the plugs out don't bother with a gage).
Check for valve clearance. Measure when the lobe is pointing away from the valve. If you have one or more that have gone to zero, that would be a sure sign of burned valves.
Check for holes in any of the engine cases - that's usually a bad sign.
If you, take the valve cover off and try turning the engine over via the big bolt on the main pulley. Do the cams turn? Do you have a cam chain still there? Any teeth missing on the sprockets?
If the cams are turning, check for compression (just take the plugs out don't bother with a gage).
Check for valve clearance. Measure when the lobe is pointing away from the valve. If you have one or more that have gone to zero, that would be a sure sign of burned valves.
What Rich said.
From your description, I would be led to believe you have a blown head gasket. They don't always immediately start mixing oil and coolant when this happens. If the engine spins by hand and the crank and cams turn in sync and stay in time, this is probably your issue.
If the timing is off by even a tooth, your chain could have skipped and taken out a few valves. This would also cause all of your symptoms, plus is more likely to cause a CEL before the driveability issues started to show.
Either way, I don't think there's much concern of it causing an issue with the newer engine. Check your cooling system to make sure it's still in good working order first.
From your description, I would be led to believe you have a blown head gasket. They don't always immediately start mixing oil and coolant when this happens. If the engine spins by hand and the crank and cams turn in sync and stay in time, this is probably your issue.
If the timing is off by even a tooth, your chain could have skipped and taken out a few valves. This would also cause all of your symptoms, plus is more likely to cause a CEL before the driveability issues started to show.
Either way, I don't think there's much concern of it causing an issue with the newer engine. Check your cooling system to make sure it's still in good working order first.
Now with that being said, I did run the car this weekend with the new engine, and on my initial test drive, the motor was making some ticking sounds and hiccups and whatnot, which is what's expected for sitting for so long. After a drive around the block, the CEL showed up again and the engine got slightly weaker. I quickly limped my way back home and ran the code, turns out it was P0117 for engine coolant sensor low input. It made a lot of sense because that's the only sensor we re-used from the old motor since the plugs were different. I also ran a volt/ohm-reader to it while the car was running and it was definitely low.
I picked up a new one, replaced the thermostat while I was at it and flushed the coolant, and it has been driving great since. My question is, could that stupid sensor be the reason to blow up an engine?
Oh and one last note.. After getting to operating temp the engine rattles quite loud. Looks like it's coming from the chain, but after a lot of reading online, it could very possibly be the water pump going bad. Good thing I took out the old one (which looked new-ish). I'll have to diagnose that some more tonight to see if the noise is coming from the pump... If it is, looks like I'll have to reflush all that coolant I just put in :?
10-03-2017, 04:25 PM
#5
Junior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: Vallejo CA
Posts: 4
Oh and one last note.. After getting to operating temp the engine rattles quite loud. Looks like it's coming from the chain, but after a lot of reading online, it could very possibly be the water pump going bad. Good thing I took out the old one (which looked new-ish). I'll have to diagnose that some more tonight to see if the noise is coming from the pump... If it is, looks like I'll have to reflush all that coolant I just put in :?
10-07-2017, 01:20 PM
#6
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Mesa, AZ USA
Posts: 706
So that P0117 didn't show up the first time around. Well computers are programmed by humans so... I can see that happening today with sell phone distractions etc, but 15-20 years ago when this car was designed, I thought people were more focused.
Thats a lot of work just to find out it was a bad sensor
So with the water pump, it's not just an air pocket causing the rattle is it? Good that you have a known good spare. Bearing, seal & Rotor... not much to go wrong there.
Thats a lot of work just to find out it was a bad sensor
So with the water pump, it's not just an air pocket causing the rattle is it? Good that you have a known good spare. Bearing, seal & Rotor... not much to go wrong there.