Help! Lifters and Leaks

[924]

Ok here is my problem, I ran sea foam through my engine and ran it about 50 miles and changed the oil. I ended up using synthetic oil, which was just plain dumb. I should have known better than to put that into a 24 year old car. After three weeks of driving the engine is leaking oil in many spots, bad gaskets all over, leaking by the exhaust, balance shaft seal, cam tower and probably more places too. Hopefully not internally. The lifters are clicking, engine is running rough (shakes the car at idle). Basically the engine turned into a fountain spewing oil (ok it’s not that bad, but still...), there's a pond on top of the flat surface part of the engine. Lost about a qt of oil in 40 miles running under 2k rpm.

Only thing I think I can do it change it back to reg. oil and hope it seals back over time. No oil in the coolant, I hope there's no coolant in the oil, I'll find out soon. The engine sounds just like this:

YouTube - 944 Turbo Lifter Noise or Rod knock?

Sticky lifter? Just seems odd that it would stick after synthetic oil and sea foam unless something clogged it. Should I put sea foam into the oil and run it before I drain the synthetic oil and put the reg. oil back into it? Hate to put it away for winter already. Any ideas where I should go from here? Lesson learned... Never use synthetic oil in a old engine
Thanks guys
Jim

[Rasta Monsta]

The sound is a flat lifter. The Sea Foam probably loosened some debris that is now clogging the lifter.

As for the synth oil, it didn't cause you to spring leaks. . .the Sea Foam did. I would be very hesistant to put any solvent in the crankcase of a high-mileage 2.5 for this reason.

Best thing to do now is to pull the motor, put it on a stand, and reseal it. Inspect your clutch disk while the motor is out, and replace front of engine belts, rollers, and water pump.

[924]

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of.... Maybe I'll swap an engine.
So you think the lifter needs to be replaced?

[Rasta Monsta]

A buddy of mine just fought a sticky lifter for a while. He would clean it, then his filthy motor would deposit more crap inside it. He solved it by putting kerosene in the crankcase, cranking for 15 seconds, letting it sit for 12 hours, cranking again, and draining. No more gunk in the crankcase, and once the lifter freed up it stayed freed up.

But. . .we'll see if he springs leaks from the solvent.

[924]

Would it cause any damage to drive it with a sticky lifter?

[HondaDustR]

Why swap another engine with 25 year old seals that probably will leak, unless of course you plan to reseal it first.

Good seals will keep any oil in. My strategy was to just pick off the jobs one by one as time permitted, but the best and easiest way to do it, especially if you have another car to drive, is to just pull the motor and do them all. Several of them go from 5 hour jobs to 20 minute jobs that way. But, yeah...conventional oil does not keep the insides of engines very clean, especially if it isn't changed regularly. Wash all that varnish away and you've got nothing but shrunken dried up gaskets and seals to keep the oil in. I have seen the difference in cleanliness side by side tearing down motors and I will continue to use at least part synthetic even if it means resealing.

[924]

Originally Posted by HondaDustR

Why swap another engine with 25 year old seals that probably will leak, unless of course you plan to reseal it first.

Well if I do a swap, it wouldn't be a 944 na engine, I'm thinking more of a 951 or S2, and they would undergo a rebuild before I would put it in the car. But the easiest thing to do I guess is pull the engine out this winter, change most/all gaskets and other internal parts that are worn down. I do have a 2nd car, so it's not a problem, just the S will be going into storage earlier then I thought it would. I'm just wondering if it would be bad to drive it the way it is a little bit more?

[Paul Stewart]

I'd park it, leaking oil can cause a fire.

[924]

Well.... I found out that I don't have a sticky lifter making a ticking sound...

I started taking the cam housing off, I notice that some bolts were really easy to remove, hand tight, I keep going, remove the caps on top of the housing, some bolts inside were lose too, I get to the last two bolts inside the cam............ and they were nowhere to be seen.




Instead I have bolts and a chuck of aluminum from the cam housing hitting the cam shaft. Amazingly, both bolt entangled themselves together and were jammed into a oil channel. (jammed so well it took me about an hour with a hammer and screw driver to remove them) Only the soft aluminum chunk was hitting the cam (notice how rounded the corners are), if the harden bolts were to hit the cam and jam up, the engine would most likely be toasted


(sorry for the bad pictures flash wouldn’t work)

Surprisingly the cam is not damage at all, I carefully been looking it over, not a mark on it from the bolt.

I'm just really gratefully that while I was revving the engine high rpms to free the sticky lifter that one of the bolts didn't fall into the spinning cam, or the 100 miles I drove it like that.


There is a missing washer from one of the bolts, I'm guessing it's sitting on the bottom of the oil pan.

But while I was removing the caps (to reach the inside bolts of the cam housing) I notice on the bottom of the caps there was a milk shake color. I did a leak down test and I have all four cylinders ~ 183-185psi range. I bought a new seal kit for the oil cooler, hoping that will fix that problem. When I drained the oil, it didn't look bad at all (no coolant/water), only about 200 miles since the last change. Any input welcome

Also, when I removed my timing belt from the cam gear, I notice that that it has a large bevel all the way around it (only ~150 miles since new belts and pulleys). I'll have to investigate more to see where it's rubbing or if that was caused by that bolt hitting the cam. In general, belts under high loads can twist or tilt, I doubt that is the case here.

[John_AZ]

924,

quote "I bought a new seal kit for the oil cooler, hoping that will fix that problem. When I drained the oil, it didn't look bad at all (no coolant/water), only about 200 miles since the last change. Any input welcome" end quote.

Do you have the OPRV alignment tool required to align the oil cooler housing on the block?

Make sure you lube the 2 big "O" rings on the oil cooler or they will roll over and leak.

Did you get the OPRV aluminum crush washer? If not it will drip.

GL
John

[89-944NA]

Not trying to capitalize on your misfortune, but I do have a cam tower if yours is toast...comes with cam and pulley.

PM me if interested

[924]

Originally Posted by John_AZ

924,

quote "I bought a new seal kit for the oil cooler, hoping that will fix that problem. When I drained the oil, it didn't look bad at all (no coolant/water), only about 200 miles since the last change. Any input welcome" end quote.

Do you have the OPRV alignment tool required to align the oil cooler housing on the block?

Make sure you lube the 2 big "O" rings on the oil cooler or they will roll over and leak.

Did you get the OPRV aluminum crush washer? If not it will drip.

GL
John

Hey John, I didn't realize that I needed a tool for that. Thank you for telling me. I might know someone who might have one close by. I bought the oil cooler kit from here pelican and it looks like it comes with the crush washers. I'll have to double check on that.