engine problems

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doobie

doobie

Active Member
Posts
807
Location
North East of Scotland
my quest for speed has come to a bit of a hault as if have just return home from work offshore and found my s3 is slightly buggered.....

whats happenin is it is really struggling to start, the starter turns fine but it struggles to fire. once its going the engine sounds like its running slower that normal (it may just be me though as i've not heard it for 2weeks), its got bugger all power and makes a tapping noise that runs in relation to the engine speed. its making alot of black smoke when ticking over and white/blue when rev'd. there's also a fair bit of fumes coming from the engine oil filler when i took the cap off!

i'm about to take it round to my ma's where i've got all my tools and stuff to have a look, anyone got any ideas what it could be?? i've not really got much engine repairing experience so i'll just be dismantling untill i find something broken!

this'll be the last time i lend it to the girlfriend while her cars in the garage!! :mad:
 
what engine is it?

I got the same prob with a 2.5 petrol.:(:eek:

I am beginning to think it is the cam followers or the carbeetooter, because I have the same tapping noise - its not the timing chain (checked it) and it aint the tappets (checked them too)
 
its a 2 1/4 petrol. i'v managed to determin that cylinders 1 & 2 aren't firing and 4's not all that great! hopefully its just a dodgy distributer!

managed to toodle back home at 25mph with couple of tool boxes in the back. my bro's currently swapping engines in his peugot an taken up all the shed space at my mum's so i'm goin to have to squeeze into my wee shed at home!
 
Do the standard stuff
Points , plugs , leads , coil.

As for slow starting check the bat (borrow a good one for 10 mins) and the earth connections to the starter.
Tapping could be almost any thing but I would start with the tappets.
Steaming vents could be head gasket and this may also be why pots 1 and 2 are not
firing but it is more likely that it's just been sitting for a while.

Check head gasket by looking for Mayo in the oil and or bubbling
water and or blow back through the carb (Chuff sound) and or pressure test each pot.
 
cheers for the pointers, i've checked the plugs and all that side looks ok.

the cab does chuff, i thought that was normall, that why i call the thing "chug"....... doh!

the water side of things looks ok but i'll go check the oil. most of its already on the drive/garage floor anyhoos! plus if the head gasket is anything like the rocker cover gasket and the sump gasket then it'll be goosed!
 
Yep seen that before.
If you called her Chug then its been running on only 2 cylinders for a while.
you better get a engineers steel rule and some feeler guages and check the head / block for flatness you may need to get them skimed (£30 to £40 per side).
Good luck
 
For the record, a CAM follower failure is what caused my "Tacka Tacka" noise on the discussion thread of similar name, if anyone is still interested. ;)
 
coppergrease - can yu point me in the rite direction - cos i believe i have a cam follower problem - the tappets "jump and click" when setting. was yours catastrophic failure - or just noisy?

whenever i mention it - i get the "ffs heidi - they ALL do that - forget it!"
 
Hi,

Mine was just noisy, the follower split in two. The diagnosis is an engine apart job, it's difficult to confirm any other way. The noise sounds like a valve, as it happens at the same frequency, however comes from lower down in the engine. It's a tacka, tacka noise with a fairly harsh edge to it. My guess would be if you have the rocker cover off and the noise carries on even if you apply pressure to the rocker arms as it runs, you need to check. I went through days of head scratching and in the end ran out of time and had to get my local Landie-man to deal with it.

They do all make some noise, tappit noise can be minimised though. This was not going away... It sounds though that you have an issue. Simply the fact you have a "crunchie" endstop on your valve push rod, doesn't sound right to me. They do click into position a bit, and they do form an oil seal at the bottom. However, I don't think it should feel "crunchie". That sounds bad to me. Try removing the rocker gear, make sure it's all kosher. See if the "crunchie" feeling is detectable by moving the push rod in isolation. If not, I would check for excess wear on the rocker assembly. If all seems good, you may have to dig deep... If the rocker assembly is gubbed, fix it and try again. If it goes away cool, otherwise... have fun!

On mine the rocker gear was worn, but the issue remained after it was replaced. So I had to keep digging. It still does make a bit of noise, but not so harsh. It's a "ticka, ticka" noise, not a "tacka, tacka" noise.

Sorry I can't be more help mate, it's a bugger to diagnose short of looking.

Rob
 
so after some set backs (hospitalising myself with a mashed finger) i've finally got my head gasket replaced and the engine boxed up again..........

......but i cant get the bugger to start again. what's happening is the starter motor kicks in fine everything whirrs around but when it eventually fires there's a big pop and a big puff of white smoke comes out of the carb in a sort of magic trick stylee, one of these times i'm fully expecting a rabbit to appear or its going to explode and burn my shed down! :eek:

also once everything is stopped i've noticed that petrol is still peeing into the carb from the larger of the two tubes in the bore. i hadn't noticed if this happened before but it doesnt look to healthy.

i'm goin to keep tryin but its turning into a real pain in the arse, especially when i've only got 7 good fingers now!! think i'll go buy a mondaeo like the girlfriend has......................

cheers for all the advice though! :D
 
doobie said:
so after some set backs (hospitalising myself with a mashed finger) i've finally got my head gasket replaced and the engine boxed up again..........

......but i cant get the bugger to start again. what's happening is the starter motor kicks in fine everything whirrs around but when it eventually fires there's a big pop and a big puff of white smoke comes out of the carb in a sort of magic trick stylee, one of these times i'm fully expecting a rabbit to appear or its going to explode and burn my shed down! :eek: Sounds just like mine did - was caused by timing being out and firing when inlet valve open?

also once everything is stopped i've noticed that petrol is still peeing into the carb from the larger of the two tubes in the bore. i hadn't noticed if this happened before but it doesnt look to healthy. Might be the float levels

i'm goin to keep tryin but its turning into a real pain in the arse, especially when i've only got 7 good fingers now!! think i'll go buy a mondaeo like the girlfriend has......................

cheers for all the advice though! :D
Click to expand...

sounds like mine did, Clivees. Mine was broken vacuum advance unit on disty
good luck
 
Wooooohoo! got her ticking over, turns out the carb/manifold gasket was leaking so after a bit of tlc its sorted, no more peeing petrol!

....only now im running on 1 cyclinder rather than the 2 i had pre me looking at it..... ace! :rolleyes: still getting a fair draft from the lube oil filler so i'm thinkin a piston ring or two is gone and its blowing back into the sump. its sounds like an outboard motor if you put yer ear up to the tube, so somethings blown bubbles down there!!
 
got her now running on 3 cylinders! 1 & 2 weren't firing due to a little minor mix up on my part :eek: ......but thats all sorted now!!

its now running as it was before i changed out the head gasket, with cylinder 4 not firing. the hole in the head gasket was between 1 & 2 so im guessin its not anything to do with that! one day i'll get it right! :D
 
"think i'll go buy a mondaeo like the girlfriend has......................

I had one of them that sat out on the road for 2 years with very little use (brought from new 8 years ago and had now 180K on the clock) but was perfectly reliable - after mucho nagging from er indoors about lack of drive space i sold it (sorry, gave it away for £500) - the day after i found out that i'd got a split ring on the 110 and that the S3 was poorly, i only kept the ford as a backup - how do land rovers know when is the best time to go faulty.
 
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