By ROotUS (203.20.149.5) on Monday, January 08, 2001 - 07:30 pm:

i got pissed off with my motor behaving like shit for ages, i'd been swapping everything (i later found out it was a spark plug that would short it'self out temporarily n stuff (beside the point).
i recently put a tach in and i decided to let it have it. the gauge went to 8 and it wasn't long after that that the motor wouldn't do 8 anymore. it was struggling to push me along at 60k... so i drove the rest of the way to my mums house on about 2 1/2 cyl. sounding a bit like an impressa. i got there and realised i had forgotten to tighten my dizzy, and i put that back where it was supposed to go, and tightened. i started it, and for the first few unlubricated seconds under the rocker cover made some pretty horrible noises, but that quietened. i drove it back to my dads, and it had around 3 sometimes 4 cyl. going. i had to leave it and drive a slow arse corolla around delivering pizzas that and the next night.

looked under the cover and found that an inlet tappet thing had about a 1" gap. couldn't figure it out, so after a while we got that back workable. and then took out some spark plugs, and found that the one where the tappet was all wrong, the spark plug had been hit with something and had bent the contact off to the side and contacting with the electrode. i bent it back right again, ran it down the street and it did it again. a mechanic near me said that i had probably bent a valve or something horrible, or maybe chunks of something are floating around in there.
i got the cylinder tdc and got a blowie thing on an air compressor onto it. i think some stuff came out, i'm not sure cos i was looking at it and got blinded momentarily.
anyway, that cyl works fine now, maybe a little oily (may have blown a ring??) and the car runs half as shit as it used to (gotta do some major tuning).

opinions?

sorry for long post.

By Todd (208.201.105.98) on Tuesday, January 09, 2001 - 10:08 am:

These cars here in the US are notorius for dropping valve guides. They'll move up and down, so sometimes the engine acts ok, others it acts horribly. Next time you get noise, check the suspect ex valve and pay close attention to the valve guide.

By ROotUS (203.34.130.168) on Monday, January 15, 2001 - 04:54 pm:

what would happen if i didn't check the valve and its guide, it seems to blow a little smoke on start but that is all (leaks some oil into cyl when off?)
i just don't wanna take it apart right now if it seems to be still going fine.

By ROotUS (203.20.149.5) on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 06:02 pm:

arr, motor is getting worse, and when starting gets stuck a whole heap.i have to keep clicking the starter motor until it gets over the stuck bits... and then it starts fine. i'm guessing that that valve guide thing is broken, and leaking oil into the cylinder, and then it can't compress. how hard will it be to fix this.

do i remove head, and replace anything broken in valve department, bolt it back on?
i will need a new head gasket?

how often do i retorque and what brand head gasket, and should i use any glue with the gasket?

HELP!

By ROotUS (198.142.191.38) on Saturday, January 20, 2001 - 09:56 pm:

i pulled the cyl in questions spark plug, and without compression the motor still wouldn't start, same with cyl 2 (3 and 4 i can't get the plugs out cos of headers :/ )
.
ok i changed starters, and didnt' do anything, but then i hit it with a battery jump starter, and it was great... then i did it again later and i think it didn't work. i'm hoping that i just need a good battery for the moment and that other starter motor was sucking too much juice.

still waiting for opinions on head removal...

By Todd (63.52.20.42) on Monday, January 22, 2001 - 09:04 am:

The best thing to do before you start removing a head, is a compression test to determine exactly what the problem is. I once disassembled an entire 1200 that I just knew had screwed up valve train. It turned out to be my distributor the whole time.

By ROotUS (203.34.130.92) on Friday, January 26, 2001 - 05:42 am:

yeah well i charged the batt fully and its ok now... though does occasionally get stuck, but starts straight after.
i need a weber.. anyone?