Wont start

[tsirovy]

Cheers all-

I just had a serious incident with my LS. Was driving down the highway with bad tranny speed sensor and it cut tranny off like neutral when cruising @ 55mph. Pulled over to stop and restart/reset tranny to drive again (lived with this problem for awhile now).. engine starts and loud SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAK .. pull over.. sounds like coming from left/driver side camshaft distributor area.. very loud and clear squeak like unlubricated metal on metal! overheats and have antifreeze leak in driver front engine bay corner(but cant see where its coming from). Left on highway and let sit to cool down.. came back hours later to drive home.. AGAIN SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAK and tranny immobilized then engine stops... roll to stop and try to restart and nothing.. almost like its seazed up(plenty of battery power- but starter cant seems to turn flywheel @ ALL!! the engine wont move at all to start up- i mean AT ALL. what exactly do you guys think is happening here- im sitting here waiting for my LS to be towed back home now. :bigeyes2:

 

[jibbby]

It almost sounds like a torque converter lockup of some sort... Tranny locks the engine down...Hmmmmm?

I would like to know the answer to this one, I have never heard of that happening before....

 

[tsirovy]

Thought: maybe my timing belt snapped.. shight!

 

[tsirovy]

Timing belt is fine.. the squeaking is coming from the driver side camshaft distributor area. I took off the valve cover and inspected the shaft and it showed no sign of wear or metal contact. Here is the symptom.. I can get the engine to turn and even start at times however there is a point of rotation about every other 1/4 rotation of the engine that something stops the engine sticking in place and resists to turn, actually stoping the engine as if it is ceased up but if I attempt to start on then off- on then off, it moves a little at a time until it is rotating again getting about 2 rotations of the engine going then it forcefully stops and shuts down the engine once it hits that resisted rotation. I have no clue what I am dealing with here so your thoughts are greatly needed. also i was bolting the valve cover back on the engine, and when I touch and make metal contact with the front side bottom bolt and the bolted wire that is black and looks like a ground under the fuse cover with the cover off of course It sparks pretty heavily and after sparking there is a sounds like "water from a faucet" inside the top passenger side of the engine.. I dont know if this is supposed to do this normally b/c I thought this black wire was a grounded wire.

 

[rms]

Time for a tear down.

 

[Zuffen]

The bloack wire you refer to is more than likely the solenoid feed for the starter.

Make sure it isn't earthed or have any bare wires hanging out of it that may touch the block as this will stop the starter cranking.

All earth wires on the engine have a brown wire as a base colour.

 

[Lextreme II]

http://www.lextreme.com/dx-starter.html

 

[tsirovy]

 

[tsirovy]

Update:

Good news: My engine starts and continues to run like normally.

Bad news: There is a loud knock and squeak whereas seems to be coming from inside of my upper intake chamber! I wasnt sure there were any major parts inside the upper unit??? Does anyone know what this symptom is?

 

[tsirovy]

Also I forgot that after the engine is running it overheats extremely on the temp guage.

 

[sideshow]

i have been told by same shop that he has seen 2 1uzs stuff up the drivers side cam journals

the one right up the front

not sure if its that common but this guy has seen 2 engines with exactly same prob


maybe if u get a tiny bit of debree in th eoil it might slowly block a cam journal and the furthest one might be the front ones


might be good idea to just pull pf covers and check all journals

 

[tsirovy]

If my engine is knocking every revolution of the engine and starts to overheat slowly while idling then I am thinking this may be caused by a rod either going out or already out. However the sound resonates from the top air intake manifold. If this were actually a valve and not a rod then how do you determine which set of valves is malfunctioning? I dont know where to go from here.. also if I remove the valve heads is there a way to open up the block of the engine to check the rods? I have no reference without actually disassembling to that point. Thanks

 

[tsirovy]

Sideshow might be onto something b/c I removed the left valve cover to check the very front journal and it had a couplbe small metal shavings and definite grind wear marks but It was like this since I was driving the car and have had no problems with it. I dont think this could be causing my engine to knock and overheat however. Whats going on with my engine?

 

[Tempeheat]

sounds bad

you should get one of the JDM engines off ebay and call it a day.

 

[tsirovy]

Took the lex to a professional mechanic.. listened to the knock with stethoscope and his opinion was to do with the rod bearings, or main bearings I cant remember b/c my engine will eventually squeak after running, also maybe something with oil pump which was causing low psi and starving oil in both valve/cylinder heads or something.
What I know is that there is significant grind wear on right upper camshaft Main/front Journal/bearing.
I drained and removed the oil pan, to inspect front side of crankshaft and rods, bearings, but don’t think I will be able to inspect the backside of the crankshaft by removing the whole pan without the engine out of the car.
After careful inspection of the oil and pan there was a significant enough amount of metal shavings and fine/almost metal sauce coating the bottom of the pan. There were a few large chunks of shaving along with small ones.. and then very fine like i said "sauce"... Now so far I suspect this is from the camshaft journal that is grinding towards the front seal of the right intake cam, but cannot believe or imagine that all the metal debris in my oil is primarily from that.
Is there a way that I can inspect the entire crankshaft without removal of the engine?
And any input on diagnosing the issue would be great!!
for some reason I don’t think the problem has to do with the main, rod, or thrust bearings......

 

[tsirovy]

Removed the entire oil pan with out removal of the engine! Inspected engine bearings and found my problem. Prior I checked the oil psi and it was below 20-- idling around 11psi. Checked oil pump and it looked brand spankin new. Turns out the 5th and 6th rod bearings are destroyed! about only a sliver of metal remaining.. good thing I didnt start it anymore. Brings me to my next point-- does ANYONE know where I can find a good deal on rod bearings? Other bearings would be ideal also however I cannot remove the crankshaft in order to replace the other half of the bearing on the main and thrust portion. How do I know if I order standard, .10, or .20 sized bearings? I even found some bearings on ebay that are .25 undersized. I assume this means if I had resized the actual rod then I would need to find an undersized bearing. Well appears I seem to be a forum whore but whatever..

 

[Lextreme II]

This is serious problem nonetheless. You should measure the crank diameter before ordering the bearings. Secondly, you want to double check if the crank have damage from lack of oil.

david

 

[Tempeheat]

yes

I would throw it in a river somewhere. Those journals are surely scratched. You'll spin any new bearing you put in it over a matter of time. I wouldn't waste the time or take a chance with it.

 

[V8Datto]

you should get one of the JDM engines off ebay and call it a day.

This is what I would do, sound's like a good plan.

Then you can strip the engine you have now and sell off the good parts.

 

[tsirovy]

The advice on this website is invaluable! What would I do without your intelligence!? Like buy shitty engines and throw cars in rivers.. I will entertain considering both of these wonderfully perfect ideas. Thanks