timing problems lumina z34

[jeffcoslacker]

Originally Posted by mudbeast66

P.S. should I be concerned with the T-chain with 150K miles on the original?

If you locate the sound as being tesioner slop letting the chain rattle, yes.

[jeffcoslacker]

Originally Posted by mudbeast66

She is actually quite when cold, noisy when warmed up.
When she is cold at idle in park, the engine will actually shimmy the car like a 350 with a big lope cam in it. When hot, she is still, buit has that wierd slap or irratic knock. Today. I noticed the oil light flickering to the beat this morning on my way to work. Again, all this at operating temp and about 30 minutes of driving at 70mph.

Shit. You've got a sloppy crank main, sounds like.

[mudbeast66]

So I'm SOL?

[jeffcoslacker]

Originally Posted by mudbeast66

So I'm SOL?

Not 100% certain, but in my experience there's only three things that make an oil light flicker with engine revs.

Bad sender, reading pressure too low, bad oil pump, or a really sloppy main bearing bleeding oil pressure, making system pressure too low.

If you're knocking on one cylinder, I'd bet on the last one.

[jeffcoslacker]

If you pull the pan and catch it before it wears all the way through the bearing shell and scores the crank, it's relatively simple to replace the bearing.

You could inspect the pump and pickup too.

[mudbeast66]

Is replacing the main bearing a weekend project or do I need to send it to a shop?
I did notice today that if you take it out of gear at a stop light, the knocking goes away. Seems like it knocks more when stopped at a light and in gear. Cruising down the road at 30mph or more, there seems to be no noise.
The oil light comes on real quick and goes away when I shift back into gear from sitting park or neutral.
I am praying for an easy weekend project.

[jeffcoslacker]

What year is yours?

[mudbeast66]

95 3.1

[jeffcoslacker]

Originally Posted by mudbeast66

95 3.1

http://www.autozone.com/servlet/UiBr...db.jsp#hd1-1-3


This all assumes that the motor is out of the car and on a stand. You can do it with the motor in the car, provided you can remove the oil pan and have room to work inside the bottom.

Once the caps are off, the crank will drop slightly, enough to get bearing shells in and out. In your case I'd remove the caps one at a time at first, and look at each for obvious scoring/blueing/extreme wear out of spec.

That way you should be able to simply put the cap back on and re-torque it if it appears normal, and move to the next one. The lower shell is always going to be worse than the upper (carries harsher loading), so if the lower looks good, the upper is fine, most likely.

If you find a bad one, you'll have to replace it, and make sure the crank journal is OK.

If the mains look good, the rod bearings should be checked. Actually before doing anything to the crank I'd give all the rods a shake and if you find one that has any obvious slop around the big end, it's got a bearing issue also. They can knock before you can really feel the movement, so it's not a given that this will find a bad one. Usually they've been hammering for a while when they are bad enough to feel it.

I wouldn't bet on it being a weekender if you aren't familiar with the job (or even if you are), seems like you always find something unexpected.

I pulled apart a Mazda 323 with a knock a while back...it spun a rod bearing and needed a new crank and bearings. The guy didn't want to mess with it. He gave me the title, I put in an undersized bearing coated with axle grease, put it back together and dumped 4 qts of 50W in it, and drove it to the salvage yard.

Sounded fine for about the first 5 miles Was beginning to knock again when I got there.

[mudbeast66]

Would you repair or find a new ride?
Just trying to figure out what I should do.
Thanks for all the info.

[jeffcoslacker]

If I was'nt afraid of getting dirty, wouldn't feel like killing myself if it went wrong, and had a plan B, I'd try to fix it.

[mudbeast66]

I have a lil rice burner sitting the driveway collecting dust right now.
I can always use it to get to and from work for a week till I got it finished.
Thanks again for the input. Have a great one Jeff.
Mud