Cannot bring to Cyl. 1 to TDC

[iSpyder]

Where to begin... A few months ago I took the SHO off the road to do full a 60k service. Needless to say it was one issue after another and finally after completing the upper 60K portion I had the car towed to my mechanic to do the front portion and fix a serious coolant leak (leaking where the pipe from the water pump connects to the water outlet; how that happened is another story altogether). Having the car wasn't critical to me so they worked on it whenever they had some downtime. So in the last few weeks they have finally gotten to the timing belt when they hit another problem. First they noticed that the timing was off by 5 teeth or so (I never even touched that) and when they went to bring the car to TDC they couldn't. He asked me if the car was running OK before I dropped it off. I told him what I had been working on and that the car hadn't been started in a while but was running fine up until when I started the job. They pulled the plugs to look in the cylinders but couldn't find anything causing the blockage. He said (I believe) that normally the first thing would be to check the rod bearings but since I said the car was running fine before he's hesitant to do that. He said he could pull the heads but that would be some serious labor and wasn't sure if I wanted to spend that kind of money. The car is stock and since it is a non-interference engine what are the chances this is a bent valve? Any other idea's on suggestions on what I could have him look at? Even though the car was running fine before should I have him go with his original instincts on dropping the pan checking the bearings? I'm at a loss and really don't want to spend thousands of dollars on a car that monetarily isn't worth that (emotionally, that's a different story). I'll be real upset if I spent all that time and effort in attempting the 60k service and never even get to drive the car.

Thanks guys. As always your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Erik

 

[LJRuddy]

What do you mean it wont go to TDC? Do you mean that when you rotate the crank shaft around it locks up shortly before TDC? If so, then you probably have built up some surface rust on the cylinder walls from the pistons sitting in the same place for so long. A simple fix to this is to pour a few oz. of ATX fluid into each cylinder via the spark plug hole. Let it sit for a few hours. Then, rotate the crank shaft by hand (wrench or w.e) back and fourth until the rust breaks free.


Be sure to change the oil afterwards though. And dont worry about not getting all of the ATX fluid out of the cylinders. What little is left over will be burnt up during the first start of the engine. Dont freak when you see smoke pouring out of the exhaust though.

 

[sho_sc]

Where to begin... A few months ago I took the SHO off the road to do full a 60k service. Needless to say it was one issue after another and finally after completing the upper 60K portion I had the car towed to my mechanic to do the front portion and fix a serious coolant leak (leaking where the pipe from the water pump connects to the water outlet; how that happened is another story altogether). Having the car wasn't critical to me so they worked on it whenever they had some downtime. So in the last few weeks they have finally gotten to the timing belt when they hit another problem. First they noticed that the timing was off by 5 teeth or so (I never even touched that) and when they went to bring the car to TDC they couldn't. He asked me if the car was running OK before I dropped it off. I told him what I had been working on and that the car hadn't been started in a while but was running fine up until when I started the job. They pulled the plugs to look in the cylinders but couldn't find anything causing the blockage. He said (I believe) that normally the first thing would be to check the rod bearings but since I said the car was running fine before he's hesitant to do that. He said he could pull the heads but that would be some serious labor and wasn't sure if I wanted to spend that kind of money. The car is stock and since it is a non-interference engine what are the chances this is a bent valve? Any other idea's on suggestions on what I could have him look at? Even though the car was running fine before should I have him go with his original instincts on dropping the pan checking the bearings? I'm at a loss and really don't want to spend thousands of dollars on a car that monetarily isn't worth that (emotionally, that's a different story). I'll be real upset if I spent all that time and effort in attempting the 60k service and never even get to drive the car.

Thanks guys. As always your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Erik

Hate to say this, but this whole story (with the mechanic that is) sounds like a load of BS.

A bent valve, on a stock SHO, will not cause this nor a turned rod bearing. and by not going to TDC, do they mean the engine won't turn over?? and being 5 teeth off, the car won't run at all (30 degrees off?).

 

[johndallara]

60K issues

I seem to remember when I was researching my 60K that the # 1 piston will be at TDC every OTHER rotation of the crankshaft. It might be that even with the timing marks lined up, you might be one cycle out of phase.

I agree with the others. Seems to me that if you can physically turn the engine, and your crank sprocket is lined up correctly when the timing belt goes on, you should be good. To check the # 1 cylinder, use the forum-described "straw method". Here is a link showing how to do this.
I am no expert, but this was hard for me and I had to think it through carefully.

http://johndallara.home.mindspring.com/sho/id16.html

I would take my SHO home, and strip down the front of the engine to the crank sprocket and cam sprockets, loosen the plugs, and turn the engine to get # 1 TDC. A new timing belt and you should be good.

Best of luck,

JD

 

[Off Road SHO]

One of your shims might not have gotten seated all the way in the bucket. Cheap enough to pull the intake and covers.

Tom

 

[iSpyder]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm a bit more confused now so I'm going to check the car out tomorrow and see exactly what their seeing. As I understand it the enginge will rotate manually until it gets close to or hits TDC, but maybe I'm just didn't understand what he was describing.

 

[iSpyder]

One of your shims might not have gotten seated all the way in the bucket. Cheap enough to pull the intake and covers.

Tom

Would that really stop the cylinder from coming to or approaching TDC? I will check them when I get there tomorrow. They already have the intake and valve covers off I believe.

 

[egroce11]

I had one here one time that the #1 plug was left out for awhile. It would turn over by hand until just before TDC than stop, we would turn it back wards until the #1 was just about to TDC than it would stop.

We knew since it turned over that it wasn't the bearings stopping it and didn't have a bore scope, ended up pulling the back head and found a piece of carbon had come loose and lodged itself between the piston and head causing it to stop going to TDC.

If you've gone far enough to do the upper 60k than you can take the car home yourself and pull the heads, get you a book, it's a good learning experience.

Ernie

 

[iSpyder]

I had one here one time that the #1 plug was left out for awhile. It would turn over by hand until just before TDC than stop, we would turn it back wards until the #1 was just about to TDC than it would stop.

We knew since it turned over that it wasn't the bearings stopping it and didn't have a bore scope, ended up pulling the back head and found a piece of carbon had come loose and lodged itself between the piston and head causing it to stop going to TDC.

If you've gone far enough to do the upper 60k than you can take the car home yourself and pull the heads, get you a book, it's a good learning experience.

Ernie

Thanks Ernie. That is an interesting situation. One of the first things I did after taking of the intake was clean the ports since they had close to 120k miles of build up on there. I wonder if I knocked loose a chunk large enough to cause the same situation you describe. Is the only way to know for sure to pull the heads? Would the bore scope have worked to diagnosis this if you had one?

 

[egroce11]

yes, they make things a lot easier for checking inside the cylinder with the heads on. Sho_sc told me he found a bore scope for a reasonable price.
I hope you find your problem is just the carbon. Also try the job yourself it's fairly easy once you get into it.

Ernie

 

[SHOZ123]

I bet when they say the timing is off they are going by the marks which do not line up once the car has been running????

 

[FREAK_SHO]

I bet when they say the timing is off they are going by the marks which do not line up once the car has been running????

Same thing I was thinking.

 

[somedude_001]

I wish you were closer. the 60K service is easy once you have been in there a couple of times. I think this guy is a idiot.

 

[92inPA]

iSpyder,
I might be able to help. You've been PM'd.

 

[iSpyder]

Mystery solved!

Just an update for those that may have been reading this thread. As suggested by LJRuddy, I had some ATF poured down there and let it sit over the past weekend. Sure enough when the engine was hand cranked on Tuesday she broke free. Something down there was gumming up the works and I guess it was either rust from the engine sitting idle and open for so long or carbon from when cleaned off the intakes. They gave it another shot of ATF and let it sit the night just to clean out anything else and even got the engine back together and started. She smoked like **** when started but that was expected. Anyhow, thanks to all that had suggestions and offers of assistance! :thankyou:

And for those wondering what they meant by the timing being off, they said this when they went in there to change the belt. It was noticed before they started anything. The car went in not running and was never started once they started the front 60k. After they changed the belt, broke the engine free and ran the car the timing is now perfect.

Erik