timing or electrical at fault, or...?

[carpenter_jai]

Hi All,

Been a long time since my last visit. Glad to see there us still a great group here. I am in the process of decomissioning my 95 3 cyl and swapping my accessories into a 96 3 cyl that doesn't have all the body damage and ghost electrical problems the old boy has. So, in an effort to see what is wrong with the 96 that I picked up broken for a deal, I took some stuff apart. The old car had 220 000 km, or about 140k in non-metric. The 96 has 209000 km, so not much difference here. She has been parked since summer when the car could no longer make it up the hill next to the owners home. I thought that sounded like a timing problem so I went in for a deeper look.

1st: I found out that she has had a recent timing belt job. 6 months, I'd say. Cam seal looks good. Cover and gasket are in good shape and only a little oil collected in the bottom near the crank wheel.

2nd: There is a lot of oil on the tranny. The owner said that the car was eating up about a litre of oil a week of only short neighbourhood drives. She never saw a puddle on the parking space. So I pulled the spark plugs and found number 1 fouled with oil and heavy oil deposits. Maybe grease? Number 2 and 3 are both dry and seem to be more covered in ash than any of the photos in the spark plug troubleshooting guide. Could this mean blow by the rings in #1?

3rd:I pulled off the valve cover to have a look at the valves. The cover came off easily, and there was no evidence of the grommets being removed previously (there is now ). There is hardly any oil in here. I will check the dip stick tomorrow. The lifters look very brown. I have heard that they may burn out at about this age. Any ideas here?

4th: The timing adjustment is maxed out to advance the timing, just like my 95s after I did a timing belt replacement last year. Is the setting supposed to be at the centre of that adjustment range when it is new? Does it need to periodically advanced over the life of the car as the cylinders wear?

Tomorrow I will get photos and check a few more things. I am starting to think that the car died from inadequate power to fire the plugs since the last owner said it basically died while driving and had not enough power to keep going even at slow speeds. Maybe the alternator or battery. Both are old, but the belt is new (I replaced it last spring).

Anybody have any useful suggestions or ideas? I am willing to put some time into getting this car going cause I can't afford not too. My car is about to fall apart (that will be a different photographed journey through just how abused a metro can get-see photo at left, and do not do emulate!) I am thinking about the possibility of doing a head job on either th 96's engine or the 95's. JDM's are a great price, but to take them into Canada means at least another $300. Makes it just enough to at least think about this long and hard. Anybody know ho long it would take to disassemble the head to replace rings and gaskets? Anything else to do while in there?

Cheers,

Jai

[carpenter_jai]

I decided that photos would not help. Upon closer inspection of the number 1 spark plug, I found that it is not only fouled with oil, but has a large deposit of calcium? I mean, that's what it looks like. Damn near encrusted the electrode. I can't test for compression until I put everything back together again, but I will do that as soon as I get over this damn flu.

So, here's the question. Anybody think that a 3 cylinder metro can get by with one dead cylinder? I don't know if it is that bad, yet, but just thinking about worst case scenario. The only other low cost option I have is to take the engine out of my 95 and drop it into the 96. I know there are a million threads about how to do this, so I won;t ask, but I am open to anybody's opinions. Is it worth while? Car's in Canada are not nearly as cheap in the states, and I kind of like the idea of not filling up landfills with cars just because it's cheaper to replace rather than fix. And to be honest, seeing the success that doctorbill has had, I am inspired to get at least one of these cars road worthy.

Thanks for any advice in advance,

Jai

[$400chevymetro]

You need to run compression test first. If you have a burnt valve and do a valve job with the mileage you better do the rings while head is off I did mine in about 8 hrs. with a little help from my father in law. If it's burning oil you should see specs on the back of car. The oil on your tranny could be coming from distributor the o-ring may be bad and it could be dripping down on tranny. There won't be any oil under valve cover unless the engine is running. The only way to check the timing is with a timing light. The only JDM's I've seen are for 95's and older and I think I read the pulley's would have to be changed and the pan doesn't have a hole for crank sensor among other things but it can be done you might want to check out a few posts on team swift on the subject

[carpenter_jai]

Progress! I got things re-assembled and took it for a road test. This is what I noticed. Ticking. Really bad ticking. Not too big of deal I guess. I'd much rather have to fix lifters than do a head gasket job, but wait, I think I do. This car stinks really bad. It was pretty dark when I got her running, but it looked like white smoke from the tailpipe. Anyone know how long it takes to replace the head gasket, and is it worthwhile for me to only do the gasket?

Power-wise, she has about the same power as my 95, so that makes me think that the #1 cylinder is not totally out of the game. Compression test tomorrow to find out.

Sound. I am trying to think of a good descriptive word to explain how different this car sounds from my 95. I'd say that it is faster and whinier. Also, while cranking the engine, it reminded me of the sound of a motorbike, rather than my 95. High pitch and fast. Anyone know what might be the cause?

Thanks for the info. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Jai

[gasenvy]

Pull the timing belt off the gear on the crankshaft. Check to see if the gear moves without any rotation of the crankshaft. If so the key and maybe the slot are wore. It may be the reason why the timing is set the way it is. I discovered this problem on a 98, 3 cylinder I had. My son drilled two holes in the gear for allen screws. We put it on and it worked great untill the big accident.

[stanno]

Originally Posted by carpenter_jai

Anyone know how long it takes to replace the head gasket, and is it worthwhile for me to only do the gasket?

I did the head gasket and had the head rebuilt last year on my 1.3L 4 Cyl here in Victoria. Start to finish, head came off easy and replaced easy... I figure it took me about 5 hours total. Key though, even though it is not mentioned, is to replace the head bolts at the same time. I did some research and found out that mine were torque to yield... cost me $40 from the dealer for the piece of mind that everything is ok. I figure with the head gasket and seal kit ($180) plus getting the head machined and rebuilt ($450) I still came out ahead on my $300 firefly... I know I am laughing with gas here at $1.145/L.

Also, while you are in there, you might want to consider doing the timing belt... you have it all apart anyways and knowing that that belt is good is a good thing to know.

Hope this helps Jai. Ask if there are any questions. I'll help as much as I can.

Stan

[Chromehero]

Jai,
From recent experience with my timing being off by three teeth, that may lead to the conditions of the spark plugs. After correcting the timing, I changed the spark plugs and found the #1 plug was black and wet.
So, you might try correcting the timing, but that means something else too: what caused the timing belt to slip. In light of this potential problem, you may consider replacing the timing belt and correcting the timing. Seeing the Distributor fully advanced tells me this problem has been going on for a while, because they would have advanced the timing to compensate for the problem. When you are replacing the belt, you might want to check the cam. I have read other posts in here regarding some pin shearing off, throwing off the timing. If you replace the pin, you can correct the timing, and you may end up with a decent engine.
Chrome.