'98 transport squeeking

[papa_jim]

My wife's 98 transport 3.4 developed a severe miss and developed rough idle on her way to work over the weekend. At low idle I can hear what appears to be a squeeking coming from the top end towards the back of the engine. The squeeking mostly goes away when engine is revved. Check engine light is on and flashing. No water in oil. Ran fine up until this happened. I'm old school and am not looking forward to turning into a pretzel to tear into the back of this engine, especially since most of it is covered by the cowling. I've heard that you have to take these motors out from the bottom, is that true? Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

[cdru]

Originally Posted by papa_jim

Check engine light is on and flashing.

A flashing check engine light means that a severe misfire has occured and may still be. This needs to be corrected ASAP as this type of misfire can overheat the exhaust to the point where it can ignite unburn fuel in the cat. This can destroy the cat as well as cause other damage to the vehicle.

First thing I would look at would be a general tune up as well as general look over to make sure things look in order such as fuel pressure. Getting the codes read may tell you a little more, such as which cylinders were misfiring if it was just one or two. I bet though that the computer will tell you that you had misfires on multiple cylinders though.

[papa_jim]

Originally Posted by cdru

A flashing check engine light means that a severe misfire has occured and may still be. This needs to be corrected ASAP as this type of misfire can overheat the exhaust to the point where it can ignite unburn fuel in the cat. This can destroy the cat as well as cause other damage to the vehicle.

First thing I would look at would be a general tune up as well as general look over to make sure things look in order such as fuel pressure. Getting the codes read may tell you a little more, such as which cylinders were misfiring if it was just one or two. I bet though that the computer will tell you that you had misfires on multiple cylinders though.

Sorry for the delay in responding, migraine put me down for the day yesterday. I have less than five hundred miles on a recent tune up. The squeaking that I am hearing sounds more like metallic noise. I've heard that the 3.4's have a gasket leak problem, could it possibly be water in combustion chambers causing this problem. I can't afford to have codes read at this time, thinking about buying my own code reader in near future. Thanks for the speedy reply.

[cdru]

Autozone will read the codes for free as will many other car part shops. That would be best initially to get you pointed in the right direction. I've only had my check engine light flash on me twice, once when I was well beyond needing a tuneup that I had been putting off and once when I ran out of gas and the engine starved itself. There can be a variety of reasons why an engine misfires.

The 3400 (and 3100 and 3800 and...) do have a gasket leak. However it wouldn't leak into the cylinder it would leak into the oil. Pull your oil cap off and look in the top. If you see any accumulation there or just inside the filler neck of a brownish thin mayo like substance, you have a leak. The leak can also leak external to the block/head. If you have coolant in your cylinder, it's most likely either a cracked head or a head gasket.

Are you losing any coolant?