Knocking after intake removal

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bmcreider

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The 89 has a slight racket like that and my dad always said it needed a valve job....but it doesn't really bother me now since it's wrecked and a parts car, the 91 doesn't have that sound *knock on wood*
 

Axianator

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Thought I'd give everyone a little update on the situation.

It turns out that the cause of the problem was me and the source of the problem was a little nut (or an object of similar description) that had made it's way into the #6 cylinder, producing the aformentioned rattling sound. As one might imagine, that little foreign object managed to chew things up pretty good, rendering both the factory piston and front head useless. The good news is that Mr. Tony has been able to correct my error and repair the damage that I caused. The engine ended up requiring almost a full rebuild and received the following parts and services as a result:

- used replacement piston assembly from a donor 3.2L
- custom set of Total Seal gapless rings for all six pistons
- refreshed heads with new guides, seals, and complete 3.0L cam set
- gasket-matched port work on all head ports (intake and exhaust)
- new 3.2L head gaskets, cam seals, oil pan gasket and other seals
- new heater core hoses, knock sensor, temp gauge sender and other bits

As of Saturday, July 17th, the car was completely reassembled and back in my possession, and as of Friday, July 23rd, the (new) engine had passed the 500 mile point and was "officially" broken-in. I am now up to about 1,200 miles on this new engine and am liking it pretty good. The new parts seem to have found their happy place now (as evidenced by the recent emissions testing) and the wee bit of extra torque is nice on the butt dyno. I don't have any dyno numbers for the new setup yet, though I plan to correct this in the very near future. Anyone want to take bets on the new numbers? :)

For a more detailed look at what was found in the engine, go here:

http://hosting.superhighoutput.com/axianator/albums/mysho/rebuild_04/

In closing, I'd like to send a BIG thanks out to everyone who has helped me over the past two months with their ideas, suggestions and moral support. I won't attempt to name the name of every person who helped (as I know I would forget someone), though you all know who you are. Two of my biggest thanks go out to Murph for towing my baby to Tony's house and helping me out with parts, and to Mr. Tony himself for spending countless hours and untold amounts of sweat working to repair my baby. Without any of you guys, I would have probably been way up the creek with a very small paddle. You guys are what made this repair possible!

Lesson of the week: make sure that you always double-check your intake ports before you reinstall your intake. :D
 

Bizzy

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It's awesome to have her back on the road I'm sure. Congrats to you and to Murph and Tony for making it happen. :thumb:
 

Lance Cheney

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This reminds me of the disaster on my first car (a '86 Mitsubish Tredia), many years ago. It was flooding out (carberateurs rock!) and we had put a circular file into the throttle body to wedge it open so the gas would evaporate. I get the thing running and take it for a drive up the road and everything is fine until I hit the brakes and the car stalls out. Start it back up and there's a funny pinging sound, get it back to the house and it's just intermittent light pinging like something bouncing around inside the engine.

Got the head off and found several pieces of circular file. It had broken off when we had pulled it out of the carb and had not noticed it, and it had gone in and out of all 4 cylinders, breaking into what appeared to be 3 smaller pieces. There wasn't nearly as much damage to the head or piston as your motor shows but I still had to bore it out 0.030" and get new pistons.

Big metal things in engine == bad. Small metal things in engine == also bad.
Glad it's back together for you!

-Lance
 

Racer X

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Wow... that's reminds me of the time I was at Bob's and he was working on the motor in his wife's car. He went to rotate it and the assembly would seize up. So I put a file in through a plug hole to check for proper movement. Of course, a valve snagged the tip of the file, and broke it off. In the cylinder. Fun times...
:doh:

glad to hear that you got your car running properly again. :)
 

Axianator

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Lance Cheney said:
This reminds me of the disaster on my first car (a '86 Mitsubish Tredia), many years ago...
Glad to know that I'm not the only one who has done something like this. ;)

NotSoSlowSHO said:
Glad you got if figured out. That audio clip gave me shivers!
At least now we know what a nut banging around inside a SHO engine sounds like. :D

Racer X said:
Wow... that's reminds me of the time I was at Bob's and he was working on the motor in his wife's car. He went to rotate it and the assembly would seize up. So I put a file in through a plug hole to check for proper movement. Of course, a valve snagged the tip of the file, and broke it off. In the cylinder. Fun times... :doh:
Funny ... I would have expected Bob to be the one to do something like that. :snicker:

Thanks again, everyone, for the kind words.
 

Axianator

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witsimpala said:
Glad you didn't give up! :thumb: Where did the nut come from? :confused:
We have no idea where it came from, actually ...

Reiterated tip of the week - always double-check your intake ports, boys and girls. :)
 

TheSandmansSHO

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hey bizzy if you get this, that was the SAME exact noise my 93 was getting before it croaked, maybe there's a connection to the death of it? i have a bad feeling there is...the noise that he posted was deathly familiar to the one i was hearing before it died..ARGH
 

Bizzy

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Axianator said:
We have no idea where it came from, actually ...

Reiterated tip of the week - always double-check your intake ports, boys and girls. :)

You betcha. You'd be surprised what gets kicked up into the engine bay from the road. Just because you're not expecting something to be there doesn't mean it's not going to be. Better safe than sorry and unfortunately Adam learned that the hard way. But at least he's all fixed now.
 
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