[ironhead1974]

Just bought a 90 G20 van. When I bought the vehicle I noticed it had a slight knocking noise almost like something was loose under the van.

I started it up and looked under it and saw nothing that would be making the noise. I removed the engine cover and started it and tried to pin point the sound in the engine and still couldn't isolate where the sound was coming from. I would listen to each head and it sounded like the noise was coming from more the center of the engine, I thought perhaps it may be the water pump toward the front.

The van would run fine, no loss of power, tranny was shifting smooth, the only problem was an audible knocking noise at times. At idle it wasn't that audible, more so when I would give it more gas. So, I also thought it could have something to do with the throttle body injection.

Anyway, took a little road trip over very mountainous roads. 100 miles one way and 100 miles back. And I was thinking how well it was running and how good of a purchase I made, and then it happened.

As I was ascending a mountain the knocking noise changed from the normal sound to almost a sound where your muffler blows a whole in it. Almost like the internal knocking noise became an external rattling and grinding. Needless to say the power I had going up the mountain dropped off considerably, almost to a creep. I pulled over as much as I could with cars behind me and decided I had to go a little farther. I got up the mountain a little more (maybe 50 feet) and then I had no more power. I had to pull off the road and it shut off on me. I let it cool off some and checked the radiator and it had coolant in it, the temp gauge was not reading hot. As we were rolling it up on the roll back, engine oil started pouring out onto the bed of the rollback. So I guess I have a hole somewhere in the block or head or a seal is blown out.

I tried to start it again and nothing, the engine wouldn't turn over at all, and still won't. Any help of what this sounds like and what I should be looking for when I get around to tearing it apart is greatly appreciated.

Thanks