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3L Cougar tapping

Blackcoog

Hard-core CEG'er
Joined
Nov 14, 2000
Messages
1,998
Location
Mounds View, MN, USA
Time for another interesting story: :)

A while back I dropped a 3L into a cougar. The build went great and recently she had the dealership do an oil change. Since then the car has been leaking oil pretty bad. Apparently the oil went below the min line and she filled it back up. Then the car started misfiring and smelled like gas so she brings it over so I can take a look. The car cranks forever before it starts. The coil pack was out of spec so I swapped it. We try to start it and we finally get it going but it starts tapping. :help: I pull the valve covers to check for loose valve train and everything looks good. I drop the y pipe and gas comes out of the rear header (front is dry). I pull the oil pan and the pickup has one small chunk of metal in it. I checked the rods for movement and some move around slightly. What is an acceptable amount of movement?

Do I tell the girl to call the dealership and complain about the oil leaking or is it her fault?
 
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Well if you have low compression I would check first sounds like the peice of metal may be the piston since you have fuel in the exhaust. I am wondering if maybe the injectors was stuck open and flooded the cylinder and hydrolocked it snapping a ring land. Did you rewire the injector harness maybe leaving a bare wire to ground out? Oil starvation would mean you spun a bearing but you say a piece of metal was it thin and waffle looking? Do compression test then write back. JOey
 
where was the oil leaking from? drain plug?
 
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Oil was coming from a few spots. It looks like it was coming from the timing cover, filter and drain plug. I don't recall any oil leaking previously.

The metal in the pickup was about a 1/4" or 1/8" wide and an 1" long curled up (paper thin).

Also when I drained the oil it almost seemed like there was gas in it. It was hard to tell because there was gas on the ground and everything smelled like gas at that point.
 
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Sounds like bearing metal to me. If it's a spun bearing and it's from a rod, one of those puppies will move a lot more than the others. Side clearance is listed as 0.10-0.30mm with a service limit of 0.35mm.

If it wasn't ticking before she got the oil change, and it's been relatively recent, have her take it back to where they changed her oil and raise hell. There's a good chance that whomever did the oil change forgot to add the oil before starting it up initially. If it's been more than a few weeks, or so, she's not likely to get any help, but it's worth a shot.
 
Ah ok side to side. You are right. There is a tiny but there. Any oil shavings means it's done anywho.
 
Well if you have low compression I would check first sounds like the peice of metal may be the piston since you have fuel in the exhaust. I am wondering if maybe the injectors was stuck open and flooded the cylinder and hydrolocked it snapping a ring land. Did you rewire the injector harness maybe leaving a bare wire to ground out? Oil starvation would mean you spun a bearing but you say a piece of metal was it thin and waffle looking? Do compression test then write back. JOey

Did you rig this car? lol

I pulled the bearings and they were fine so I decide to check the injectors and sure enough one was stuck open. Right when the key is turned to run the cylinder 2 injector starts dumping fuel. The harness and injectors are all stock Cougar parts. Talk about bad luck. I put a new injector in there and it no longer dumps fuel. I ran a compression check on that cylinder and it is still at 150. I snapped some pictures of the rod before I put the oil pan back on because it definitely looks like it's bent slightly. :(
 
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Did you rig this car? lol

I pulled the bearings and they were fine so I decide to check the injectors and sure enough one was stuck open. Right when the key is turned to run the cylinder 2 injector starts dumping fuel. The harness and injectors are all stock Cougar parts. Talk about bad luck. I put a new injector in there and it no longer dumps fuel. I ran a compression check on that cylinder and it is still at 150. I snapped some pictures of the rod before I put the oil pan back on because it definitely looks like it's bent slightly. :(

Sorry to hear but I had a hinch it a stuck injector from what you explained but I was hoping you didn't hydro-lock the motor I would expect a ring land broken or bent rod but it is a bad motor either way better off swapping the motor versus fixing it. The harness could be the problem but it would need to b e grounded or leaking across to ground for it to dump the fuel like that. Sorry to hear it man
 
I doubt it's a harness issue when a good injector in it's place works just fine now. I can blow through the bad injector so it's definitely bad. I'll double check the grounds anyway.

BTW does anyone have a stock 17lb return injector (cream colored, square plug, on any non-SVT V6 Contour/Cougar)? I have every other injector but that one.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

Chris
 
For those interested here is the bent rod shown from underneath:

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It could have been much worse. The engine still runs and holds compression so I should be able to sell it to someone that wants to tear it down and replace the rod. That sale will help cover the majority of the cost I'm charging the owner to put the new motor in. I would normally have torn it down and fixed it but the owner wants to start fresh. :shrug:
 
It could have been much worse. The engine still runs and holds compression so I should be able to sell it to someone that wants to tear it down and replace the rod. That sale will help cover the majority of the cost I'm charging the owner to put the new motor in. I would normally have torn it down and fixed it but the owner wants to start fresh. :shrug:


Piece of mind - I wouldn't want a motor that had previously bent a rod. I still wory about my car for some silly reason, I point the finger at the shot rear roll resistor allowing the motor to move causing all sorts of drivability fun.
 
well I hate to say when yo bend a rod your crank usually suffers it too where you will need to get it recheck on a balancer because to the naled eye it may be straight but I know Ray had replaced three rod bearing same cylinder due to bending a rod.

But no worry the heads are worth the most since you have them ported for SVT heads the rest is scraps. Joey
 
I doubt it's a harness issue when a good injector in it's place works just fine now. I can blow through the bad injector so it's definitely bad. I'll double check the grounds anyway.

BTW does anyone have a stock 17lb return injector (cream colored, square plug, on any non-SVT V6 Contour/Cougar)? I have every other injector but that one.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

Chris

I have some cream colored injectors out of my mystique from after swapping to SVT injectors. Send me your address via PM and I'll get on out to you ASAP.
 
I found someone who overnighted a few to me last week. Thanks for offering though.

The engine is sold to a guy in MI. I pulled it out last night and I should be able to get it ready to go tomorrow. I told him what happened to it. I think he works for a ford dealership so he should be able to get it up and running again.
 
I'm "the guy", lol, and yes I work at a Ford dealership. I can get pretty much all the gaskets needed(full upper and lower sets from Ford) to basicly tear the thing down and at least the head bolts for about $200, and a new rod for $50. Not the way I would prefer to go, but oh well. Plus one of the guys I work with has built some pretty serious motors (roughly 2,000 hp type motors...) and said he'd do some port/polish work on the heads for me if I wanted for a nice price too. I'll look into getting the crank checked though for sure, excellent suggestion. I'm sure as I dig into this I'll be popping up in this forum a bit more.
 
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