chillerice

Guys I'm wanting to give up and throw this car in a river now. I'm unable to keep a stable job (health reasons) & I've put $2000 working last year in this car & now I'm broke.

I drove to my state inspection last week with badly adjusted valve lash & for a spirited drive after seafoam due to hesitation (highest rpm was 6k) at smoke show. After that no knocking only loose lash. Next morning both knock & ticking. Watch 2nd link also

I've readjusted the valve lash two times this week to specifications since I did it wrong last week.Anyhow I did 0.008 Intake 0.010 Exhaust and was told recheck. I did it 0.007 Intake and 0.009 Exhaust today. The tick is gone or way better to my ears.

My friend who's a mechanic is saying I now have a thrown/bad connecting rod (VIDEO BELOW) because of sludge (slight evidence tho). Let me remind you the car wasn't raced,redlined or short on oil. Only difference is it had 10W-30 oil when I got it and I changed it to 5W-30.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_RPt...ature=youtu.be

94EG8

Sounds like rod knock. This is why I never recommend anyone seafoam anything.

chillerice

So you think the seafoam could have cause a rod knock?

chillerice

He's also trying to tell me that my engine head has sludge like it's a 300k miles car and the sludge caused it.. my engine has 80105 on the motor. Here's a picture of the head:

bgdriver

That sludge is pretty nasty. why did you put RTV on the header?

B_Swapped93

looks like that engine was mistreated it may have 80K but it's definitely been abused.

grumblemarc

iTrader: (4)

My engine has 210k on it and no trace of sludge. That engine was neglected/beat up on.

chillerice

We got the car with close to 67000 miles on it. It was on eibach springs & 17's with ricer looking side skirts. I honestly don't know who had the car before. We bought it at a dealer.

Horn never worked & tail light wiring was messed up. Indicator flashed with brake light but was sorted out. Oh well. I guess I'm gonna have to turn my plates in an wait until next year to get a motor. FML

redcoats1976

got 240,000 on mine and its clean inside.someone didnt change their oil before you got that car...

B_Swapped93

exactly what I was thinking when I saw that head and all that sludge even after a seafoam session. when I was looking for a car I took the VC off before I made an offer, car was a 94 GSR and it was so clean you could eat off it. my civic on the other hand I wasn't so careful with it but the slude isn't too bad as that it has 358,xxx KM's w/d16y7

chillerice

What makes me even more pissed is The car just got re-registered because my brother bought a wrx and was gonna sell this civic. I took it and started trying to bring new life to it.

Oil changed,konis, tein springs, new SRI and filter, repaired interior with new carpet. Started it up ever other week from winter 2010 up until now so the oil and stuff would dry out and seize the engine.

I recalled one mechanic looked it back in Spring,revved it and said it sounds like it was raced before. Not by us though. I wish I could find that ricer & sucker punch him for mistreating a possibly new motor & added to it's downfall.

chillerice

I didn't put seafoam in my crankcase. I've seen bad things about it eating up rubber. I put 5 ounces slowly through my brake booster vacuum.. I had lucas in the gas so i didn't want too many additives in one area.

My brother treated this car like his life depended on it. Regular tune ups, degreased the engine bay. change the oil,brakes you name it. Too bad he never knew about opening the engine cover....

Sad part is we paid 6500 for this damn car.

chillerice

Would you guys recommended a rebuilt,cleaned motor or should I buy a new (used) one?

94EG8

Yep, it breaks up the sludge and moves it from the inside of the block and up in the head and valve cover where it's relatively harmless and sends it all through the engine where it plugs up small oiling passages.

Btw, that engine was severely neglected. It doesn't look like it ever had an oil change.

Driving the **** out of something wont make it sludge up like that, idling everywhere along with infrequent oil changes will though.

IMO your best bet at this point is buying a low mileage JDM replacement engine.

90Acura

"Guys I'm wanting to give up and throw this car in a river now."

I know the feeling. I was at that point recently with what was my always perfect running 90 Acura. I bought at least $500 worth of parts after deciding to r&r some of the exhaust and other items that needed replacement, and put the car back on the road. The car decided to stick intake valves, after years of sitting and then running with bad gas. After a head removal, unsticking all the intake valves, Seafoam in the fuel, flushing a few tanks through, and a procedure where I spray a few shots of Gumout in the intake right before shutting it off every time, I now have it running well. A top end r&r really is not a big deal for me, but all from just lousy bad gas I was ready to push the car over a cliff. Even more so, after I discovered that no valves were bent, and that they free quickly by removing the plugs and spraying a mist of Gumout in the cylinders with the valves pried open. Several prys up and down after that unsticks the worst of them, and I wouldn't have had to remove the head if I had known.

I wouldn't jump to conclusions with the noise, as they can make some heavy noises if the valves are sticking. I wouldn't be surprised if that is going on, if it sat for a while. I've heard everything including a loose spark plug once, that anyone would have sworn was a rod knocking. Hopefully it's nothing major. Good luck with the engine. As for the valve adjustment I wouldn't be surprised if a few thou removed the valve tick. The specified clearance seems to be a bit loose to begin with, and just a few thousandths more will get them noticeably ticking.

Agreed on the "appears to have never had an oil change", as my 186k engine has gone a few 10k runs between changes although I generally shoot for 3k, and it's perfectly clean inside. As for the Seafoam, I would never put a thinning/cleaning agent in the oil. The best way to clean a dirty engine is to clean as much as possible after removing the valve covers and the pan, if you can remove them, and simply do numerous oil changes.

chillerice

Since my brother got the car in 2007 the oil was changed every 3500 miles. And I did a change it after the car sat for at least 2 years since 2011. Maybe the owner before me/my brother didn't.

Jimster480

its 100% a rod knock. Sounds like it might be cyl 1. Its usually 1 or 4 on those motors... If you havent driven it really since it started knocking, take the oil pan off, figure out your bearing colors, inspect the crank and change the bearing (when u order the right one from Honda). Did it to my DD Y8 Coupe and its been okay the last 4k miles with the new bearings...

chillerice

Okay I'll look into it. What you mean " driven it really ". Cause I passed safty inspection & I was going to drive it to do emissions safter I failed the first time,since some guys says it was head related in a previous post. I reached like 1/8 of a mile and turn back because the valves were annoying me.

Haven't driven it a inch since that. One guy told me as long as I didn't mark the crank I should be okay to change the rod + bearings.

90Acura

You bet. As long as it hasn't been run much with the rapping bearing, you may get away with simply changing the bearing shell. Just a thou or so past the point at which they start rapping will cause a good bit of noise, so you may actually have a chance at fitting a new shell toward the high end of "acceptable" tolerance. These quality modern engines are generally right around .001" crank clearance, so you have a bit of slop to work with even using the original shell, hopefully ending up at the high end of .003". I've done several full bottom end bearing replacements including the mains, on engines with low oil pressure that turned out to have all the babbitt coating gone. Even main shells can be worked in place without removing the crank.

Non-orthodox repairs can sometimes be quite successful. My buddy polished up a worn journal with sandpaper where a rod was knocking, and then fitted an undersize bearing to the crank. He literally used a Dremel drum sander to remove a few thou and size the bearing to the journal. The guy who owned the car drove it thousands of miles afterward at 80mph.

95Sedan

you have 80k miles and your head does have sludge like that? I'd love to see what the bottom end looks like.

Would rebuild and clean EVERYTHING out