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Bad misfire, possible HLA collapse? Maybe loose spark plug? Help needed, BADLY.

B

BigBalledOX

CEG'er
Joined
Jan 11, 2005
Messages
31
Location
Schaumburg, IL
Cross-posting here because the knowledge base is considerably larger then on NECO. For those of you who don't know, I have a 3L/SVT hybrid. I will be happy to provide any further information requested.

I've been getting a lovely tapping/clattering sound. Unable to pinpoint it, I took it to a shop and they determined it was coming from the upper engine.

Now, I made a couple of assumptions here and this may end up being very bad for me, but its too ****in late now. Knowing the HLA's are somewhat notorious for going bad and making a sound similar to what I described, I made the potentially foolish assumption it was just one of them starting to go bad.

I've heard of people driving for plenty of miles on them, and so I accelerated plans to have the new engine installed, thinking it made more sense to do that then to repair the HLA's since the engine was coming out of the car for overhaul before sale anyways.

Now, tonight, when I was driving home, I noticed the car had NO power, at ALL. Since the noise started, I've been very gentle with the car, but I was merging on to the interstate and there was just no punch at all.

When I was getting off the interstate, the car died on me. Now, this is not an entirely unusual occurance, so I simply put the clutch in and restarted it. The engine barely turned over, the car made this horrendous squealling sound, and then the car died again.

I tried a couple more times with the same result. Finally, I got the car to start and stay running, but it was still making this horrific sound. Fortunately I live at the foot of the interstate, so I was able to get home and park.

I opened up the hood to check the oil just in case, and the oil was fine, right where it should be. The squealling noise seemed to be coming from the front bank, near the accessory pullies. Now, back at Cougarfest I was thought to have a spun bearing, but upon opening the car up, we found the spark plug on the front bank, nearest to the accessory pullies to be finger tight.

I didn't have the heart to open the car up tonight and check things, it was getting dark and I'm super depressed right now because I'm having so many issues with this engine.

After talking thing over with another member, he speculated its possible the HLA has actually collapsed, and the car is misfiring due to one of the valves not fully opening. Now, this is sort of a stupid thing to assume, but I've heard of people driving thousands of miles with bad HLA's, so I'm wondering if there's any out there who have had it collapse?

The other possibility I am considering, the one I'm praying for, is the spark plug has worked its way loose again, and the tapping/clattering was from the spark plug vibrating.

To recap the sound, it makes it at startup, and then when the car is under load. When the car is not, if I'm coasting, the sound is almost gone . . . almost.

If anyone has any ideas, I'd really appreciate them, but right now I just wanna cry.
 
Your Check Engine Light is probably on. Scan and post the code(s), maybe even the PIDs.
 
You know I was chasing a mysterious tapping niose, for a while. I pulled my upper & lower & started working on the rear valve cover when I found that my EGR tube was loose. Thats not all, I tighten it up & chalk it up to the header install, Drive it for a day & the noise comes back as i'm leaving home the next day the #3 plug spits out of the engine. So I drill out the hole & out the insert in & now I'm loosing compression on that cylinder. I know I'm rambling but the point is if it is the plugs or even if you think it might be the plugs check them( use a torque wrench). If you find one that is finger tight pull it out & check it the threads might have been damaged from runing w/ it loose.
Don't make the same mistake I did & not check the simple things when you still have a chance to fix them.
 
Hard to say. A collapsed lifter could cause the valve not to open, and therefore a misfire. If it happens to be an exhaust valve then that could back up the exhaust into the intake and screw up the other cylinders.

It sorta sounds like that but the horrible squeeling sorta sounds like a spun bearing.

The poping noise at the spark plug could be the compression blowing out around the plug, a high pitched noise. So pull out all the plugs, clean them, put anti sieze on them and retorque to correct specs, around 18 ft-lbs or so I think.

It could also be signs that you have no oil pressure in the top end of the motor causing all your lifters to run low on pressure and the associated misfires, but worse if the top end was ran low on oil then the cams could have been what was screeching and that would make it hard to turn over, or run at all.
It is easy to pull the valve cover and check. THen pull various cam bearing caps and take a look. you can also loosen all the caps enough to shift the cams off the roller followers and remove them, then check your HLAs. Be sure to pull the thrust bearing cap first and don't remove the remaining caps all the way becase the timing chain is still under tension.
 
http://s19.photobucket.com/albums/b173/BigBalledOX/?action=view&current=CIMG0836.flv

There's a video of what the car is doing. Yeah, thats fun.

I checked the spark plugs and wires, those appear to be fine. At this point, I'm out of my element, because one, I ain't that mechanically inclined, and two, its about 40 degrees out and I don't have a proper garage to work with.

I'm having it towed to a shop tonight, I guess we'll see what the outcome is.
 
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