One dead Legnum (update: Fixed!)

[Kaldek]

Lifter tick was getting a bit noisy and a bit suspicious so I decided to go get some lifter tick stuff. Halfway to the shops and BOOM, motor sounds like a bag of spanners.

For now, she's dead. YouTube link coming shortly.

 

[Kaldek]

 

[Kaldek]

OK so my friends. Hit me up with your ideas.

How long to completely drop a motor? I guess it's not outside of my abilities to swap a motor out. Whatever saves the most money I suppose but if the difference is $500 I'd probably prefer to pay someone else to do it.

 

[Jakevr4]

Wow unlucky man

 

[AKKO]

Much disappoint

 

[Kaldek]

Yep. Started to tick a bit last night, felt down on power some yesterday but I figured that might just be because I'd put in the 3SX fuel loop (causing it to run rich).

Drove it to Autobarn to get some lifter tick treatment, and on the way there noticed the boost dropping off from 15 down to 8. Thought "that's odd" and then heard the rattle of death. Limped it home (3km).

 

[Kaldek]

I'm thinking that perhaps the car was giving me some advance warning of this problem. Let's delve into the archives:

• When I bought the car, it had a little bit of lifter tick at startup that would pump up. Always from the same area
• After changing the timing belts, the lifter tick was very noisy for ten minutes before pumping up
• The lifter tick then came and went but was quite hard to remove with revs
• Recently it started to become more consistent
• Last night, I could hear the tapping while driving from the sound echoing off things on the side of the road (with the window down)
• Power was also down yesterday

I'm guessing at the moment that a weak valve spring has let go. The valve being weak possibly caused the lifter to have to pump way up and eventually the spring just gave way.

I'll still drop a replacement motor into it, but since this one is now just a boat anchor I can strip it down risk free.

 

[6A13TT TYPE S]

take a timing belt cover off and check its all still lining up with the stock marks at TDC, may have had a tensioner or idler bearing fail causing it to skip teeth.

also drop the oil out of it and look for bearing flakes, those are both easy ways to look obvious indicators of whats wrong

 

[AKKO]

Lifter tick is common in our cars and not sinister in isolation, how's the oil level at present?

 

[Kaldek]

take a timing belt cover off and check its all still lining up with the stock marks at TDC, may have had a tensioner or idler bearing fail causing it to skip teeth.

also drop the oil out of it and look for bearing flakes, those are both easy ways to look obvious indicators of whats wrong

I hope not considering I just changed all of pulleys and tensioners!

Anyway the noise it's making means it's fucked so I'll be dropping the motor before I do that.

 

[Kaldek]

Lifter tick is common in our cars and not sinister in isolation, how's the oil level at present?

Oil level is fine. Checked the oil looking for shiny flakes, and it looks good. Pretty sure I've just munched one or more cylinders with dropped valves.

 

[whats_doing]

I hope not considering I just changed all of pulleys and tensioners!

Anyway the noise it's making means it's fucked so I'll be dropping the motor before I do that.

This could possibly be why. @Smurph only just did his acc pulleys and belts before the QLD dyno day and he still managed to have his tensioner come off whilst on the dyno.

 

[Kaldek]

This could possibly be why. @Smurph only just did his acc pulleys and belts before the QLD dyno day and he still managed to have his tensioner come off whilst on the dyno.

Dang! What was the outcome of that?

 

[6A13TT TYPE S]

unlikely its dropped a valve, unless a lifter catastrophically failed and a rocker arm popped off causing it to flick retainers off.
id say its either split a piston from det, dropped a rod and or crank bearing or skipped teeth on the cambelt causing piston to valve contact.

 

[whats_doing]

Dang! What was the outcome of that?

P/S pump tensioner fell into the Dyno rollers after the run, Found it again. Was all good after that.

 

[naughtika]

I think that's piston to valve action happening in that video?

+1 on opening the cam covers and see if the timing marks line up.. that'll almost confirm if its screwed or if can be fixed easily by re-adjusting the belt/cam gears etc.. Im not really hopeful with this, but there's nothing wrong with costless troubleshooting

 

[Kaldek]

Heh "fixed easily".

Anyway the car is off to Mits-Fix. Me and Malcolm get along well and he's got about a dozen engines to pick from.

 

[Kaldek]

unlikely its dropped a valve, unless a lifter catastrophically failed and a rocker arm popped off causing it to flick retainers off.
id say its either split a piston from det, dropped a rod and or crank bearing or skipped teeth on the cambelt causing piston to valve contact.

Hmmm, thanks for the insight mate. I'll be stripping the old motor down at home so we'll know in a few weeks what went kaboom.

I'm going with a motor swap regardless, but if the damage is repairable then that's a good thing for going forward with a forged build.

 

[Kaldek]

See you soon.

 

[Kaldek]

Hrm. Malcolm has the car and has started it up. Says its running very smooth even though it sounds like a bag of spanners.

His initial assessment is loose cam gears. I'm not going to say ANYTHING more in case I jinx myself. It will be my fault if that's the case though, as I removed and reinstalled those when I changed the timing belts.

Only downside so far is the tow feller in the picture badly scraped the front bar when he dropped it off and then drove away.