Engine Surging and Making Click Noises

[TheNewShape]

When i come up to a stop and my engine is idling my engine starts to surge between 0 to 1000 rpms. It seems like it will die on me on the road but it doesnt. What seems to be the problem. Also I had just got a new intake manifold on my car, now all my oil leaks have stopped suposedly. Now my engine is making like this clicking noise and it gets louder when i drive. My mechanic said since its new manifold and new gasket that its like breakin in a new engine and it needs to run after a few hundred miles and the clicking noises should go away. Is this true? because i've gone a few hundred and its still clicking loud. Please someone help me out. Thanks.

[kustomkid54]

Can we get some information.
What year?
GTP or GT?
How many miles?
Do you have a sister? Wait, forget that.
Need to know car first.

Originally Posted by TheNewShape

When i come up to a stop and my engine is idling my engine starts to surge between 0 to 1000 rpms. It seems like it will die on me on the road but it doesnt. What seems to be the problem. Also I had just got a new intake manifold on my car, now all my oil leaks have stopped suposedly. Now my engine is making like this clicking noise and it gets louder when i drive. My mechanic said since its new manifold and new gasket that its like breakin in a new engine and it needs to run after a few hundred miles and the clicking noises should go away. Is this true? because i've gone a few hundred and its still clicking loud. Please someone help me out. Thanks.

[TheNewShape]

I have a 95 pontiac grand prix se. Engine is a 3.1L. It has 121,192 miles on it.

[Shortbus]

Originally Posted by TheNewShape

When i come up to a stop and my engine is idling my engine starts to surge between 0 to 1000 rpms. It seems like it will die on me on the road but it doesnt. What seems to be the problem. Also I had just got a new intake manifold on my car, now all my oil leaks have stopped suposedly. Now my engine is making like this clicking noise and it gets louder when i drive. My mechanic said since its new manifold and new gasket that its like breakin in a new engine and it needs to run after a few hundred miles and the clicking noises should go away. Is this true? because i've gone a few hundred and its still clicking loud. Please someone help me out. Thanks.

This is the same problem I'm having on my 99 GT. This is the second manifold I have replaced due to the egr tube melting and warping the plastic plenum. It clicks and makes a howling noise, and the clicking changes with the rpm. Mine is not surging though. The first time I replaced it I used a genuine gm intake and had a buddy of mine do it that worked in the service shop of the gm dealer I was working at. It never made any noise after the first one was replaced. This time I bought a aftermarket manifold and did the job myself now it started to make that valvetrain ticking or clicking noise. I have no idea why but I'm going to find out what the problem is. On a side note I never noticed before but the exhaust manifold was cherry red after driving it about 5 miles back to the house, I wonder if this is normal or if its running lean, there has been no SES light indication that anythings wrong. I'm going to get an engine stethiscope today and see if I can pinpoint where the noise is coming from, it seems like its everywhere, and it doesen't always do it so its intermittent, that has to rule out rod or main bearings. I'm just a parts guy and not a mechanic so I hope somone can help us. I'm going to send some pm's and see if I can get the experts in on this thread.

If you find out anything please post it here, this must be fairly common. Did you use GM or aftermarket parts?

John

[Flatrater]

I repair at least 100 3.1L intake leaks a year by replacing the gaskets. Ony one time did I get a noise after doing the reseal, the reason I got the noise is I swapped by accident 2 pushrods and when started it bent the pushrod. The exhaust and intake push rods are different lenghts. When you bent a pushrod you stand a chance of bending the valves so you have to pull the head and send it to a machine shop.


TheNewShape
Your mechanic is lying to you. All he did was replace the gaskets and kept the same intake so no break in is needed. If it makes noise the job was done incorrectly. Take your car to a different shop and have them check it out.

Antoher thing to becarefulof when doing intake reseals on the 3.1L is the engine has a hollow camwith pressed on lobes. During a resael the lobes can be moved when installing the pushrods. I have been lucky in this area none of my intakes had this problem.

[Flatrater]

Shortbus@AF

I have done several of these 3800 intakes if you follow the bulletin you will replace the lower as well as the upper intake. On the GM lower intkae the EGR tube is smaller in diameter and will stop the melting.

The aftermarket upper intakes have a larger EGR opening so no need in replacing the lower intake.

Your howling noise sounds like it could be a vaccum leak. If you can spray the intake area with a carb cleaner and see if the engine idle speed changes. If it does than you can narrow down where your intake leak is.

Your engine noise might be from the last intake leaking coolant into your engine washing the oil off your bearings. Only thing you can try is to find out is if it is from one cylinder and go from there. Take a test light clip the lead to ground and stick the light between the spark plug wire and the boot shorting out the cylinder. If the noise changes you have found what cylinder is causing your noise. From there it would need the engine torn down and bearings replaced.

Your engine is running lean causing your exhaust to get cherry red. It is not normal to get that hot in 5 miles and that also shows you what area your problem is in.

I have no explanantion as to why this noise comes and goes. Noise does travel and can sound like it is coming from the whole engine area.

I hope this helped and that your problem turns out to be a small easy to repair one.

[richtazz]

the clicking you are hearing is one of two things. If it's a light tick, its a common problem with high mileage 3.1. The "zero-lash" design of the rocker arms will cause a clicking/ticking noise that isn't really anything to be alarmed of. If it's a loud clatering click, it sounds like he didn't torque the rocker arm nuts properly and you have a loose pushrod, which you need to get fixed ASAP as that can cause severe engine damage if not corrected immediately. Your mechanic was dead wrong about the "break-in" period, so I would probably take my business elsewhere in the future ( you don't need a mechanic giving you bullshit answers to your questions).

[Shortbus]

Originally Posted by Flatrater

Shortbus@AF

I have done several of these 3800 intakes if you follow the bulletin you will replace the lower as well as the upper intake. On the GM lower intkae the EGR tube is smaller in diameter and will stop the melting.

The aftermarket upper intakes have a larger EGR opening so no need in replacing the lower intake.

Your howling noise sounds like it could be a vaccum leak. If you can spray the intake area with a carb cleaner and see if the engine idle speed changes. If it does than you can narrow down where your intake leak is.

Your engine noise might be from the last intake leaking coolant into your engine washing the oil off your bearings. Only thing you can try is to find out is if it is from one cylinder and go from there. Take a test light clip the lead to ground and stick the light between the spark plug wire and the boot shorting out the cylinder. If the noise changes you have found what cylinder is causing your noise. From there it would need the engine torn down and bearings replaced.

Your engine is running lean causing your exhaust to get cherry red. It is not normal to get that hot in 5 miles and that also shows you what area your problem is in.

I have no explanantion as to why this noise comes and goes. Noise does travel and can sound like it is coming from the whole engine area.

I hope this helped and that your problem turns out to be a small easy to repair one.

Well I dropped each cylinder like you said and no luck, the noise remains constant and unchanged. I have no idea why after I changed the intake it started making the noise. I am going to pull the plenum off tomarrow and see if maybe I left a tool or socket laying on top of the manifold or dropped something down into the runner. See if you can post this on the GM forum for me and if neccessary I can make a small sound clip of the noise to upload to my server so everyone can listen to it. I can't do that now since I have taken the harness off and unhooked the lines. On a positive note I remembered to bleed down the fuel system before taking the fuel lines off and avoiding the painful spray of gasoline into my face and eyes.

[Flatrater]

Since the noise never changed would sound like you have a low end problem. Shorting out the cylinders rules out valve train noise.

[TheNewShape]

On monday i plan to drive To L.A. for a few hours and come back. where i live is like 170 miles away. Would it be safe to drive my car there or should i take it back to my mechanic and have it checked out first before I leave?

[spliffstar]

94 3.1L : Just did the LIM and having the same problem with the noise, but mine only seems to happen when it is under load during acceleration. When it idles it is fine, no noise other than the clicking mentioned on high mileage 3.1. The sound I'm hearing was never around before, even right before I did the job. I can't see the engine bearing going bad right after I replace the LIM gasket. Does anyone know the torque specs for the rockers.

On a side note something else I found interesting in my work was that the instructions from GM for the LIM gasket said to torque the LIM down to 10 ft lb's and the service manual I had said to torque to 23 ft lb's. What gives?