motor shut off while driving.

I was drivin home early in the morning and while driving I started to hear some valve chatter. I dismissed it as bein a little low on oil, but after a short while the chatter became louder. So I decided to pull over and shut off the motor. Problem with that is the second I was about to turn the key after slippin it into neutral the motor shut down. I had been watchin the temp and it was normal the whole time. While on the side of the road I tried to turn the motor over and it did. I could feel the cylinders firing except one and that one would make a bump feel throughout the car. I drained the oil after having it towed home and didn't find any metal shaving in it. So the motor turns over and some cylinders fire, but somethin keeps it from startin. Some help would be nice on this.

It could be a broken timing belt or a dropped valve seat.
Check the belt by turning it over and looking in the filler cap hole for movement. If nothing is moving the belt broke.

If the belt is all right it is more than likely a dropped valve seat on cylinder no. 4. The noise you are hearing is the seat hitting the cylinder head and the piston.

I don't think the noise is a valve hitting a piston because Ford hasn't built an Escort engine that is an interference engine since 1986.

In my case, when the valve seat dropped it really destroyed the top of the piston. After it gets hit a few times it will fall apart and all those metal chunks will get scattered throughout the engine... as well as sticking to the piston and causing gouges in it and the bottom of the head. It can be pretty ugly.

Make sure that anything you do to turn the engine feom this point on is done by hand. Turn slowly and see if you can feel where the contact is made. Sounds like the head is going to have to come off anyway though. If your timing belt checks out ok then get started on pulling that head off.

I took the valve cover off and turned the motor over by hand. All the rocker arms move as they should. Is there any way to tell if I dropped a valve seat without pulling the head? Or is that the only way? Call me lazy lol but I'd hate to pull the head and not needed to. In the morning I'm going to check to see if I just jumped timing, but I don't think I did.

Maybe you should describe the "bump" you felt a little better. To me that meant metal to metal contact in the engine. If you turned it by hand and felt no resistance and have no indication of an obstruction in the cylinder, don't mess with the head yet. You could simply have a plug not firing or something like that. Describe a little better and give year of your car and engine type.

To better your search try running a compression test and leak down test to figure out the motors itegrity... most of the time if head damage occers on any of the escort interference engines the compression test and leak down test will almost always conferm the outcome of pulling the head.. if the compression test and leak down test have positive results your looking at faulty timing (loose belt or jumped belt) ...also a real quick check.. see what ur fuel pressure is becuase that valve noise could be a lean miss or spark knock from lack of fuel

So what happened to your engine?