Problems after camweld

[jmciac]

I recently attended the Virginia camfest to have my cams welded. Immediately after the service was completed I noticed my car was running very rough, I approached Kirk about this and he told me to let it run and that it was normal for cars to run a little rough after this service. I drove the car home however, the condition never improved. Instead of bothering Kirk with this I went ahead and took the car to the dealership. They stated that I had a bad coil, which I had replaced. This still did not solve my problem. I decided to have all coil packs and spark plugs replaced. This also did not solve my problem. I made another trip back tot he dealer and they informed me that the same coil from before was still bad and may be defective and recommended replacement so I had it replaced, which of course didn't work either. In addition to the $1000 that I paid for the camfest I am now out of $1500 after the camfest by having these coils replaced which is not a problem because they probably needed to be replaced anyway. If anyone has knowledge about this type of problem and can provide some insight it would be greatly appreciated. I don't think that this car is in good enough condition to drive 7hrs to MA and I don't have the funds to ship let alone pay him $95 per hr to diagnose my car. I noticed during the camweld procedure that a bolt from one of the coil packs could not be located and was later discovered by Kirk in the engine after he used a magnet to retrieve the bolt. This was after the engine was turned several times manually. Could this have caused some type of internal damage such as a bent valve or damaged piston? In no way am I bashing NE SHO they have been great in all correspondence with me and have replied to all messages in a timely manner. I would just like to see if there is anyone out there with similar problems after a procedure of this nature. Also, Kirk is going to try and diagnose my car by phone or email based on the symptoms that I have described. Which are; Rough idle and some type of light banging noise from under the hood and also excessive moisture dripping from muffler. Again, I am in no way bashing NESHO, they have informed me that if any damage was due to the camfest procedure performed; they will make necessary repairs at no addtional cost. I'm hoping that I can get some suggestions/feedback that this is something common and a quick fix. This car only has 45K and ran perfect prior to this procedure.

Al

 

[Mr Anonymous]

Al, I finally got home from Florida a couple of days ago and Kirk and I had a chance to talk this over a bit this afternoon (my first day back at the shop in over a month).

As you know, without seeing the car it's a little hard to nail down an exact diagnosis, but after talking we're thinking it's either an injector problem, or more likely a rear wiring harness problem. When the rear wiring harness starts to melt through to the point that there are shorts between the circuits, the type of behavior you're seeing can occur. Basically the coil stops firing and instead the coil voltage gets sent back to the PCM causing all sorts of problems. What you basically end up with is one or more dead cylinders. While we inspect the harness during the camweld and insulate it, we can't always tell if there is internal damage to the harness unless it's obvious, and sometimes just handling the harness (such as during a camweld) can exacerbate an existing problem.

I understand your reluctance to drive the car up here. Give Kirk a call early next week. By then we should know when he'll be bringing Heather's '93 down to her and we can have you meet him there to load your car on the trailer for the ride back. I suspect that's probably at least 2 weeks or so away at the earliest, but short of you driving it up here, that's probably the next best opportunity to get it up here.

 

[SHOZ123]

The coils are hot all the time. The PCM grounds the coils to fire them. The coils are not meant to be grounded for more than a second at at time or the coil will soon burn up.

As Chris said if the harness is shorted it will cause a bad coil and burn up any replacement. A quick check with an ohm meter at the PCM connector for the bank one coil pins on the connector to see if they are grounded should tell the story without disassembly.

 

[f150fan]

Hmm....interesting. Sounds just like my motor!!! After having my motor welded by Kirk, 500 miles later I expierienced rough running and a knock in my motor. Turns out there was a "mystery metal" in the number 8 cylinder. I ended up using a magnetic pick up tool to remove several pieces of magnetic metal out of the cylinder. The knocking noise was all those pieces of metal flying around in the #8 cylinder bending the valves and scoring the cylinder wall. After running a compression test, it was no surprise that there was zero compression in that cylinder which was an indication of a bent valve. Kirk ended up putting a new motor in my car for a little less then $3k and he has never found out what that metal was.................................................

For what its worth, the original motor that was welded was immaculate with 56k miles on it, mobil 1 synthetic every 3k miles. Good luck....sounds like your going to need a new engine.

edit: The "mystery metal" wasn't the valve seat, wasnt the piston rings, wasn't a piece of the pistons, and wasn't a piece of the valves.

 

[ScotSHO]

Weld splatter?

 

[jmciac]

How do I locate the pcm, and how do I test it also shouldn't the dealer have detected this problem. Thank you for all of your Replies, and please keep them coming. I hope this is something that I can take care of on my own.

 

[jmciac]

Hmm....interesting. Sounds just like my motor!!! After having my motor welded by Kirk, 500 miles later I expierienced rough running and a knock in my motor. Turns out there was a "mystery metal" in the number 8 cylinder. I ended up using a magnetic pick up tool to remove several pieces of magnetic metal out of the cylinder. The knocking noise was all those pieces of metal flying around in the #8 cylinder bending the valves and scoring the cylinder wall. After running a compression test, it was no surprise that there was zero compression in that cylinder which was an indication of a bent valve. Kirk ended up putting a new motor in my car for a little less then $3k and he has never found out what that metal was.................................................

For what its worth, the original motor that was welded was immaculate with 56k miles on it, mobil 1 synthetic every 3k miles. Good luck....sounds like your going to need a new engine.

edit: The "mystery metal" wasn't the valve seat, wasnt the piston rings, wasn't a piece of the pistons, and wasn't a piece of the valves.

Thank you for the information. The only difference is, I noticed this immediately and informed kirk before leaving camfest.

 

[f150fan]

For the fun of it and to get a better idea what's going on with your motor....start checking the compression on all the cylinders! That will pretty much determine if you have a problem internally.

 

[f150fan]

Al,

For comparision to your motor....this is what my motor sounded like with the metal bouncing around. Right click, Save target as: http://www.supermotors.org/getfile/297642//after engine weld.wmv

 

[jmciac]

For the fun of it and to get a better idea what's going on with your motor....start checking the compression on all the cylinders! That will pretty much determine if you have a problem internally.

Is this something easy to do and how do I go about doing this? also what tool is needed and wouldn't the dealer have done this test already it's only been there five times? I'm beginning to think they don't know anymore about cars then I do.

Thanks again, and sorry about all the dumb questions I hope this doesn't frustrate anyone. I don't know a lot about cars, but I have replaced simple parts like alternators on the other cars. So I can do some things with a little guidance.

 

[jmciac]

Al,

For comparision to your motor....this is what my motor sounded like with the metal bouncing around. Right click, Save target as: http://www.supermotors.org/getfile/297642//after engine weld.wmv

Thanks for the link. Thankfully, my motor sounds nothing like that, the sound I hear is only for a short period of time from light acceleration 0 to 15 then I won't hear it again until I stop.

 

[f150fan]

Al, like Chris said, it may be an injector or the wiring. There would be no reason for the dealer to run a compression check when dealing with electrical problems. The sound my car made when running assured me it was something inside the motor. I knew it was not electrical hence the reason I ran a compression test.

 

[jmciac]

Al, like Chris said, it may be an injector or the wiring. There would be no reason for the dealer to run a compression check when dealing with electrical problems. The sound my car made when running assured me it was something inside the motor. I knew it was not electrical hence the reason I ran a compression test.

I thought they did, because they were the ones who told me It might be internal damage, and they wanted $800 to take it apart.

 

[V8silverfrost]

jmciac -

Check your PM's.....

 

[nik97]

The coils are hot all the time. The PCM grounds the coils to fire them. The coils are not meant to be grounded for more than a second at at time or the coil will soon burn up.

As Chris said if the harness is shorted it will cause a bad coil and burn up any replacement. A quick check with an ohm meter at the PCM connector for the bank one coil pins on the connector to see if they are grounded should tell the story without disassembly.

A short in the harness may also overheat a coil driver in the module. This can cause a shorted or open driver and require PCM replacement. Hopefully this is not the case nor is it mystery metal in the cylinder...
Good luck.

 

[SHOZ123]

It is pretty easy to see if the coil is burnt up. It would read open with an ohm meter.

Not saying it is easy to get to the coil.

 

[jmciac]

It is pretty easy to see if the coil is burnt up. It would read open with an ohm meter.

Not saying it is easy to get to the coil.

Do you have to remove the coil to do this test and would this tell me if the coil is grounded?

 

[SHOZ123]

Yes you have to take the coil off and using an ohm meter check the resistance of the primary to secondary side.

Inspecting the wires is the best way to check them. Otherwise you will have to take the PCM connector off and ohm out the coil wires. You could do this without taking the tank off.