Engine Shot...

**mike_ie** · 21st December 2012, 02:59 PM

Time to resurrect the thread. Left the car here for a couple of weeks while we had to leave the country, just got back to Alice Springs a couple of days ago. Considering the difficulties in transporting the thing out of here, I figured it wouldn't hurt to take a look and see if anything could be done to get it running under it's own steam.

Anyhow, lifted the head off this morning, thinking I might see something obvious, but nothing. Head gasket hasn't blown out anywhere, valves and pistons look to be okay, no scoring in the cylinders, etc. There *is* some coking on the piston heads, and around the valves, not sure if that's significant. Sorry about the lack of photos - walked into town to get online to realise that I'd left the camera sitting in the front seat... will post them up later.

Dropped the sump off and same deal, nothing looks obviously loose or broken at the big end

But when she's running, the engine feels -unbalanced- is the best word I can use to describe it, the way it vibrates is all off, the engine is lacking in most of its power, and I'm getting a loud, mechanical machine-gun rattle of metal hitting metal when she's running. What am I missing??

**MacMan** · 21st December 2012, 03:10 PM

Did you drop any of the bearing caps off to eyeball the state of affairs with bearings?

Have you checked what sort of condition the harmonic balancer is in? I know of someone whom I'm told lunched a 300TDI in quick order "driving through" noise and vibration which turned out to be due to balancer failure. The end result was failure to self propel due to crank and bearing failure and much money spent to rectify.

**mike_ie** · 21st December 2012, 03:40 PM

Originally Posted by MacMan

Did you drop any of the bearing caps off to eyeball the state of affairs with bearings?

Not yet, doing this at the roadside, so had to get in out of the sun for an hour before I keeled over. Will poke around more thoroughly as soon as it cools down a bit.

**isuzutoo-eh** · 21st December 2012, 03:52 PM

Could you see the little end of the con rod? Could be an ovalised gudgeon pin or hole, or even a broken gudgeon pin.

**loanrangie** · 21st December 2012, 03:56 PM

Originally Posted by MacMan

Did you drop any of the bearing caps off to eyeball the state of affairs with bearings?

Have you checked what sort of condition the harmonic balancer is in? I know of someone whom I'm told lunched a 300TDI in quick order "driving through" noise and vibration which turned out to be due to balancer failure. The end result was failure to self propel due to crank and bearing failure and much money spent to rectify.

My thoughts are balancer as well, could have flogged out the keyway and that is whats rattling away - had this on a RR V8 once.

**mike_ie** · 21st December 2012, 04:09 PM

Originally Posted by loanrangie

My thoughts are balancer as well, could have flogged out the keyway and that is whats rattling away - had this on a RR V8 once.

That would account for the noise for sure, but would it also account for the huge drop in power??

**lewy** · 21st December 2012, 04:45 PM

fuel lift pump arm,
also if you need anything done in darwin send me a pm,just noticed this thread

**disco2_dan** · 21st December 2012, 05:07 PM

I'm so impressed by every ones willingness to help, this to me shows the true Aussie spirit, I wish I was closer so I could lend a hand too, really hope everything works out for ya mate, and to every one lending a hand or trying to you should be very proud of your selves for being such good people!

**Tank** · 21st December 2012, 06:59 PM

What Blknight said, maybe the timing belt has jumped a few teeth, would pay to whip off the timing cover and check timing marks, regards Frank.

**wrinklearthur** · 21st December 2012, 11:08 PM

If the bigend bearing was that bad, the time to check which one would be with the head off.
Grab a straight edge and a set of feeler gauges from the local hardware shop ( a steel rule makes a good straight edge ), try the piston protrusion above the block and if one has a bearing gone, it will be down in respect to the others.

Do look at that front pulley, it can get noisy, but that doesn't explain the drop in power and even with a crook bigend bearing the engine shouldn't drop power that much either unless the crank is starting to seize up.

How is the turbo with it's bearings and the insides of the pipes going to the intercooler are they de-laminating at all?
The other thing is the injector pump, it hasn't had a gut full of water has it?
If either of those parts have been damaged in some way, they can cause a large loss of power and rough running. Is the exhaust blowing black smoke when running rough?
.

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