Misfiring, knocking, smell of gas

[lolwut]

Im out of town with family, and my car decided to s*** the bed as I was taking a left turn. Was running fine, then all of a sudden the engine bogged down, misfiring, shaking, knocking, and a whooshing air sound and I could smell gas. My immediate thoughts are an intake valve stuck open, or a fouled spark plug. Any other ideas for what to look at? Im not going to be able to check the plugs until the morning, the house Im at has almost no tools. It happened all of a sudden, and at first it felt like a hard shutter.

Edit: I talked to my buddy and sent a video with the sound of the engine, and he said hes heard a similar sound before, and it was a cam bearing. Which would explain all the symptoms. Anybody have any input? I wont be able to pull the valve cover and rotate the engine manually until Sunday evening.

 

[lolwut]

I pulled the second cylinder plug (second from left anyways), and the plug, boot, and pack were all ******* destroyed 7 ways til Sunday. Electrode was broken off, and the terminal slides right out. Rubber boot was split clean 75% up the side, and the pack snapped right off at the boot. I rotated the engine manually, and everything looked and felt fine valve wise. The hole for the spark plug was stripped all to hell, I tried one of those sav-a-thread kits, but it didnt work. At this point Im looking at pulling the head and taking it to a machine shop to fix, as no junk yards around here have a ZM-DE Protege. Ive never pulled a head or intake manifold off before, so Im really looking for any advice or tips aside from being precise with timing belt/idler sprocket/TDC markings. Im on a really tight budget and cant afford to **** anything up. Im eternally grateful to any help you guys are kind enough to give.

-John-

 

[tweety2300]

Well first you need to find out what happened to the plug. I can garuntee that its not a cam bearing because we don't use them, or Atleast the 2.0 doesn't and I'm 99% sure the 1.6 doesn't as well.

Either way if you don't fix the issue it will probly happen again, if you want to be cheap get a plug with a bigger thread size and cross thread it, its just aluminum. That may get you home MAYBE.

Regardless you will need new head bolts as they are tourque yield and can't be re used, you will also need a new head gasket. And mark all bolts and vaccume lines so that you don't lose or mix up stuff

Also all the stuff with the cams have to go back in the exact spot they were removed from

 

[lolwut]

Well the spark plugs were 20k miles old, so I think they were due for being replaced, and I have no clue when the coil packs were last done. The other three plugs looked pristine and identical with no signs of burning oil, running rich, or anything of the sort. The 2nd and 3rd pistons are at equal heights in their cylinders, and sound the same when tapped, which to me says that a rod in the second cylinder hasnt gone out. So Im thinking either the plug/coil pack just died from age, or the hole was already partially stripped and over time just did itself in over time. Like I said, valves looked and felt fine while rotating manually. I didnt see any sticking valves, and the springs rebounded solidly as I could feel them pushing when I turned the wrench.

I tried tapping out the hole and using an insert, but it was beyond what I was capable of doing. Im already planning on labeling all vacuum and electrical lines to avoid problems, and marking timing belt/cams to make them all go back in the way I took them out.

Do you know of anything besides valve problems, stripped spark plug hole, or general plug/coil failure that would cause what happened? At this point I still dont know if the plug problem is the cause of the problem, or side effect from it.

Thanks a ton for trying to help. Im in school and between jobs, so this bill is on my parents that Im living with currently. I cant stand having them have to pay for my vehicular problems, so Im trying to save them any penny I can by doing things myself until Im working again and I can take care of my own s***.

Edit/Also: The timing belt looks gorgeous, and it wasnt difficult to turn the engine over manually.

 

[tweety2300]

As soon as you get it back together to a compression and leak down test. I would say its a side effect, hard to tell what from though

 

[lolwut]

Will do. I got a quote from a machine shop that specializes in cylinder heads for 25 bucks or so to over bore the hole properly and put an insert in. So far things are looking good. Should I go ahead and redo the valve seats while I already have the head off? Im going to do the head gasket without a doubt.

 

[tweety2300]

If its off, do everything you can afford

 

[lolwut]

I gotcha, thanks for the advice. I might take pictures and do a write up on how to do, because I havent seen a how-to on ZM head removal.

 

[lolwut]

Update: Got the head off, and only broke one sensor and one hose =P The valves and pistons look pretty good for 156k miles, if I do say so. Ignore the metal shavings in cylinder 2.

 

[dskelly37]

For future reference, apply a generous amount of grease to the tap next time to catch all those metal shavings from falling into the cylinder. (wink)