Hello,

I'll try to make a long story short, but since it's so cold and snowy out, and I use Full Synthetic oil, it had been about 7K miles since my last oil change and I had not checked my oil level since. I was aware of the oil leaks on my car but I didn't really put two and two together. Discovered upon starting the car yesterday a loud and terrible rapping sound, I'm almost positive it was collapsed lifters. Added oil and ran the car over an hour, the rapping noise since when away, but a hard misfire on cylinder 3 still remains, along with a strange smell from the exhaust which smells like a combination of sulfur and something else, not directly smelling like burning oil, but the smoke certainly seems more dense than normal condensation would.

I can also hear the miss puffing in the intake of the car, and I'm not sure if its normal but I can feel some vacuum on the dipstick tube of the car, and when the dipstick is removed, the engine idles pretty high. The only code that ever came up was a cylinder 3 misfire. Still every once and a while a knock/rap or some sort of noise does come back, particularly in higher RPM's.

I'm overall not sure where to go from here, I've tried unplugging each plug one by one and seeing if the noise changed (back when it had a constant loud noise) and none effected it, so it sort of confirmed my suspicion of a top end problem. It also seems like the engine is really hard to turn over when cold, to the point where my so far so good battery needs a boost from a spare battery I have around. I have videos of the noise before and after adding oil (took me a bit to find that it was low, didn't expect it).

I'd have no problem replacing the lifters myself, but for some reason I do fear messing with the cam or anything deeper (heads etc).

I see no point in doing a compression test, cyl 3 is obviously dead, and it seems to me from the intake noise that its the intake valve that has a problem.

I'd love to keep my only 86K Mile monte on the road, but if this is going to be a big problem, than it, combined with the on-its-way-out trans, may be more than what its worth to mess with.

PS: If this turns out to be just lifters, I'm thinking I'll replace all 12 and swap on 3400 UIM and LIM (already have a 3400 TB on it) and possibly getting a cam & tune!

Thanks for any and all help guys!

 

When I was just driving my dad was a stickler for having me check the Oil every time I filled it with gas.
One thing you might want to look into is one of the additive oils that reduce the friction if you run it empty on oil. Z-Max or something like that? Good luck I hope it all goes well.

 

Yeah unfortunately its way too late for an additive to fix (though I realize they normally can cure a collapsed lifter).

I ran the car for about 15 minutes today and I can definitely say it is now burning oil, I can't really smell it, but I can see it in the exhaust smoke. The knock is intermittantly there, the miss remains constant and harsh. I'm now wondering if I have a stuck or bent valve on cyl 3, and that maybe it actually chipped somehow and the disloged piece rattled around in the cylinder and scored it all up causing a bit of oil to be able to be burned up?

I plan on removing the rear valve cover tomorrow weather permitting.

PS: And just to eliminate any doubt in future questions, this is an 86,500 Mile car, and it ran absolutely perfectly up until the oil got low.

 

I feel for you, only 85k and the motor is toasted. Wish I had a good feeling about this for you, but sounds like you are in the doo doo up to your eyes with this problem...

 

Yeah I'm not totally sure what to make of it so far, but it doesn't look too good.

I pulled off the rear valve cover today (in some lovely windy 30degree weather) and took a look. I am not very strong however I couldn't get any of the rockers to move/wiggle with my hands, so it seems I don't have a stuck valve nor collapsed lifter anymore.

This still doesn't explain cylinder 3 being dead, and the oil that the car now burns. I'm afraid that maybe a piece of one of cylinder 3's valves came off and maybe rattled around in the cylinder, scoring up the walls, causing some oil to squeeze by and be burned off. Not sure how possible that scenario is, just was a guess.

Also possible I suppose would be that a valve stem steal is worn out. I think what I'm going to do from here (hopefully tomorrow) is to see if I can rig up something with my compression tester to pump some air into cylinder 3 and see if I can tell where it's leaking from, and if possible, I'd like to borrow a friends borescope and take a look in cylinder 3.

To be perfectly honest, I'm royally messed over if there's damage to the actual cylinder or valves. I am comfortable with removing the Intake Manifolds and such but I'd likely not want to remove a head or worse myself.

 

So I was going to put my leak down tester on the motor today and see if I could see where my loss in compression was, but upon removing the spark plug in cylinder 3 I was greeted with a really horrific sight.

The plug is mashed completely closed, so much that it's snapped (but held) the center electrode and pushed the ground off to the side a bit. The entire bottom is also all hammered, almost as if i was sandblasted by some LARGE sand.

I'm now skipping the leakdown test for now, and hope to get a borescope camera from a friend to see what's really gone down in cylinder 3. I realize now that whatever is in there that hammered the plug must've also gouged the cylinder walls, causing my oil burn (only started since this problem). Hopefully if it was a part of a valve I can get a new valve and just lap it into the head myself and just either leave the cylinder walls alone, or at most just pull the piston and hone it myself.

I do not plan on spending a lot of money on this repair, either I do it myself for cheap (and accept that it'll never be the same and probably always consume oil) or I junk the car, plain and simple, and no pulling the motor either, it all has to be done with it in the car.

I'll keep "everyone" updated, and upload pics of the spark plug carnage tomorrow.

 

Wow, you called it. That really blows. How would the plug get smashed shut like that. Did a valve break away and do the damage? Weird failure you experienced. Best of luck getting into it. Sounds like you have the ability to do what needs to be done.

 

How low was the oil when you drained it after finding the problem? Did you see anything in the oil or send it out for analysis?

If the thing really ran low enough on oil to lose pressure, id be concerned more things were damaged, mainly the bearings.

Certainly you could try doing a compression check and such to verify your suspicion, but realistically the thing is probably toast anyways. I cant imagine it's going to live a long life after running it out of oil.

The upside is 3100s and 3400s are super common and should be super cheap in a junkyard. When I swapped mine out, I couldn't even find anyone to come take the 3100 for free (100k mile engine). They're just too common and not very desirable.

 

It had to only be a piece of the valve as I removed both of the rockers on cylinder 3 and no springs went flying. Actually to be honest I'm in uncharged territory, but I've never not been able to do something I wanted to and I also learn fast, so I'll be fine!

Actually I know quite a bit about engines however still don't have a place to really work on them, which is why I am still not going to be able to pull this motor. Whatever I do, I must do with the engine still in the car, and I'm not really trying to make the car perfect again at this point, but maybe good enough to get some more mileage out of it, or sell it. Otherwise it's off to the junkyard.

Well I haven't drained it, just added 2 qts since I saw it was low. I see not even a hint of metal (or coolant etc) in the oil on the dipstick, under the cap, and inside the rear valve cover.

Yeah I don't even want to turn over the motor at the moment, until I at least somehow clean out all the junk that must be in cylinder 3. I want to borrow a friends borescope and see whats in there, then decide whether I want to either junk the car, or pull the head off and do a honestly half assed valve replacement. And if I do end up replacing the valve(s), depending on how worth it or not worth it, it will be, I'll probably use junkyard valves, unless the cylinder walls don't look to bad.

At this point there's a slim chance that if I can clean out the debris in cylinder 3 and I also replace the valve(s) in cylinder 3 and the scoring isn't too bad, I just might consider dropping the pan and removing the piston to try to hone the cylinder, before dropping the same piston (with most likely the same rings, depending on price and whether its worth it) back in, and just using the car for what it is, and planning on carrying around oil

Like I said it is what it is, its either junk or just a brittle beater now. I wish I had the space and resources to pull the motor but I must do all of my work outside, so I am limited to leaving the block in the car.

Oh and for the bearings and what not, I'm not sure that they developed a problem really, the engine was quiet last time I ran it before teardown. That was after running it an hour each day for 2 days, from the time of the knock to the time of teardown, because I thought during that time that I only had a collapsed lifter problem due to low oil, and so I was running it (and beating it) to try to pump the lifter back up(which did work, but in the meantime, I also wrecked my cylinder 3). But anyways, I've got almost nothing to go by, but I'd imagine that if the bearings were spun or whatever that they'd not be perfectly quiet now after 2 hours of running since the low oil?

I'll let you guys know whats going on as I find out, and here's some pictures of the cylinder 3 plug as I promised: (and this is a roughly 4 month old plug that was gapped properly and I put over 4.5K miles on the car since when I put the plugs in, only problem ever occurred when the knock started when I made this thread)







PS: Forgot to mention that I do at this point believe that the intake valve is the one that chipped due to me hearing the miss in the intake, however maybe I'm wrong, won't really know whats going on and what direction I want to take until I put the borescope into cyl 3.

 

First time I ever have seen a plug all jacked up like that. Best of luck getting all the debris removed.