sideshowbob

Old cars=sudden unexplained behavior. The ping I can't be quite sure of but it could be timing related, it's difficult to pinpoint a sound from several thousand miles away Have someone esle turn off the car while you're up front, pinpointing the source. Could be the damper is going out, a chain, sudden spark knock from a seriously carbonized cumbustion chamber (from running rich). Experiment some more.

Check for flooding, pull a spark plug and sniff for gas.

Ouch. Be wary of gasoline contaminated oil! This flooding can trash your engine, as it did mine.

While screwing around, I did what I should have done long ago, but didn't. My compression read 'ok' so I didn't think about it for some time. I squirted some oil in the cylinders and got a whopping 200 psi of compression (compared to the 150 dry). Cam timing is fine as far as I can tell and twisting the crank back and forth shows only 4-5 degrees of chain slack. Looks like it's time for a new engine. $^!#.

the 'rounded thing' probably belongs to the condenser

I'm going out to check the cam again in a minute, I should mention that *I* changed the damper. The original was probably the one that came with the f54 block and I put in a 78 unit. The old one had seperated. I've never set the cam timing myself, other that to play with the cam sprocket a bit and resetting it back to #1. I found this by setting tdc looking through the spark plug hole and both cam lobes *appear* to be closed but I'm going back out to double check. I have a feeling that something very basic, and probably very serious, is bad here.

It's a 280. I'll add it to the list Maybe it's salvageable.

Oh hell, one more thing: I have an N42 head. I have no idea whether or not there are hardened seats in this thing, should I be using additive just in case?

I went a bit haywire today. I took out the radiator, condenser and set my engine to TDC in preparation to remove largish chunks of it. That's when I discovered that my timing mark reads at 15 degrees BTDC when I'm @ TDC. This could explain a few things. The timing has been set at around 23 or so, this is with the vacuum advance disconnected! (It leaks). Though it still doesn't explain the lowered compression (there are some more unsavory ideas about that!) it explains some of the other ills I've been suffering from. I should have noticed this weeks ago :stupid: . The noise: Should the lash pads be firmly against the rocker arm when the valve is closed? Mines a bit loose. This is, no doubt, the cause of the remaining noise I'm hearing.

Tell me more about this cheap quickfix! I love a good kludge.

My diff makes a bit of a click and, well, not exactly a grind but a rumble when the driveshaft is turned by hand. The free play in the driveshaft is a few inches, is this normal? Oh, and it has the infamous 'clunk' too.

"however teh next question is: coudl the alternator be causeing my dash board issues?" Probably the other way around. Fix your wiring in the dash FIRST. Stereo, any others that may have been pulled. Otherwise you'll just keep blowing fuses/links.

Possibly bad alternator, probably caused by a short. Check your fusible links first.

Your car is fuel injected and has an electronic ignition. These things depend on a steady supply of power to operate and shorts interrupt this. The 'bucking' is your engine not recieving either spark or fuel due to interruptions in the respective control systems. It's trying to die, then catching up and repeating this process.

Oh wait, you might have meant '5' wires. This would be a good sign that your ignition has been changed to a ZX unit. What is 'teh'?

The smaller wires would be - YOUR FUEL INJECTION SYSTEM. I'm curious, does the car still start after you cut them? 50 wires? Something is very wrong here, got pictures?

Extra wires? If you had a wire running directly to your stereo, there should have been only one 'extra' wire.

Connected to the ignition switch and the battery? Hmmmm. Come on now, think about that for a second. This happens when you turn the IGNITION SWITCH on and theres a loose wire connected to the IGNITION SWITCH.

Those that don't have access 2k should be able to use open office (if you're able to d/l it).

In fact, there was tons of carbon on the valve tops, I had thought this might be the cause and ran seafoam through it. It cleaned them up a bit but the noise remaind! On another note: One of the injectors wasn't firing (loose connector) on the number 1. I remedied the situation and now all I'm hearing now noisy tappets and a horrible misfire (lump lump lump). MLC: Probably likely, that carbon was THICK and may have knocked one for a loop! But again, compression remains the same! I would think that a loose seat would kill compression on a cylinder? Thanks for the input everyone, looks like I'll have to pull the head soon to find out what's up! Unfortunately it won't be in a parking lot anymore, so no funny stories about whinos On the other hand, they were fairly annoying

No, it seems quite solidly in place and I can percieve no endplay when moving the cam sprocket by hand but I have no dial indicator to thoroughly check.

Be wary of 'experts'. No, you didn't blow the control unit (not by replacing the connector), unless you were attempting to start the car at the same time, while grounding the two wires to the block or sticking them in unusual places. So... the car isn't starting now? What's going on?

Ummmm. No. It's an LED attached to a resistor and a 9volt battery. For those moments when your flashlight and face want to occupy the same space.

If a picture says a thousand words, what's a video with sound good for? Knocking My bandwidth may not bee too good on the upstream! What does the noise bring to mind? It appears to be coming from the top somewhere in the center of the head. A stethescope reveals nothing at all. The valves have been adjusted, but they don't stay that way long. Engine gets very low vacuum (10~11) and compression reads 150 across. Peeking through plug holes with my LightOnAWire™ shows no sight of valve to piston impact. And yes, this is pretty much part of the problem I've had for months, but the knocking is louder (or the exhaust quieter?). I've replaced the manifold gasket and gotten nowhere. Ideas? Please don't tell me to get another motor, please? Could this be spark knock? I have no idea how to tell. The only experiences I've had (burnt valve chunks and rod bearings due to oiling failure) didn't sound like this.

Do you have a bicycle pump or a small compressor (the tire type is fine)? Testing injectors for fun and profit is easy. Or you can do it on the car by disabling the ignition and cranking the whole set into six jars.