V6 Engine Disaster

[bingo nightly]

Good evening, I haven't posted on here for a very long time, mainly as I have nothing of much interest to say, however I thought it might be useful for someone if I related my findings regarding my v6 as follows:

 

Had the car 3 years now, late model MK1 2.8 Ghia, lovely motor, bit thirsty but I don't do high miles and as its not worth a busting lot these days I have planned to hang on to it for the forseable future. The engine uses not a drop of oil but has got a rattly tickover due (I assume) to the cam chain

 

About 3 weeks ago I started it up one morning and thought I heard a strange and previousley unoticed "whirring" noise,

I turned it off and restarted it and the same thing happened. Repeated the process and the noise was gone so drove to work.

However,on the journey it felt slightly rough, barely noticable but not quite right, and I thought I could detect a sort of hollow roar which seemed to be intake related.

Over the next few days It seemed to get rougher, like a misfire, and I assumed the coil pack was playing up.

The following weekend I investigated and could find no reason for a misfire/rough running. Coil pack seems ok, plugs were fairly recent as are the leads. Good spark and none of the cylinders were obviously playing up..........but the motor was getting rougher by the day!

 

My thoughts went to the fuel system but could find no obvious faults and so decided it would have to go in to a garage for a diagnosis. In the meantime The car was still in use but keeping the speed down to 50 (in fact it was becoming increasingly reluctant to do any more than 50). It started fine, ticked over fine if a bit uneven, ran (roughly) and was showing nothing unusual in the way of warning lights, oil or water temperature, smoke, smell or anything else apart from the rattle which seemed louder and the odd intake booming noise.

 

Last tuesday I drove 3 miles into town and it was getting really rough, amost undrivable and on the way home it finally coughed, slowed and as I pulled off the road stopped without a hint of anything wrong from the dashboard.

Having lifted the bonnet I unscrewed the oil filler cap and smoke wafted out, the same thing from the dipstick. I tried to start it again but nothing happened. Seemed like it had seized solid!

 

That night I started to investigate and found the motor unwilling to turn with a spanner on the crank pulley. I removed 5 plugs and they all looked clean, the 6th plug however was strangely reluctant to move , but after a bit of winding back and forth eventually came out. And what a sorry sight it was! The tip is smashed in and a clean sharp cut at right angles across the end, rather like its had a good whack from a cold chisel.

After the 6th plug was out the motor was free to move and turns over albeit noisily.

 

So at this stage I'm guessing but It looks like the cam chain has slipped its teeth, timing has slipped and the piston has rammed a very bent or probably broken valve into the end of the plug. Nice!

 

So hopefully head off tommorrow and more will become clear. I'll report my findings. In the meantime I'm walking to work, and looks like the money I save on petrol will be needed to buy a replacement engine.

[gregers]

tried moving this topic to the relevent section....looks like the forum going tits up again.

[bingo nightly]

tried moving this topic to the relevent section....looks like the forum going tits up again.

 

 

 

 

Oh bugger! just noticed that, sorry, wasn't paying attention.