I finally got rid of my hatch that had more rust then steel for a fairly mint wagovan. Or so I thought.

1000 miles later and the damn thing leaves me stranded on the side of the road, ah wtf.

What happened:

Engine was making loud knocking noise, thing is, I never onced revved it past 5500rpm. I was actually trying to take care of it lol. Gave it a fresh oil change not to long ago, it was burning a little but it was only about .5L low. The noise it was making had me worried bad, so I was taking it real easy. I was kinda mad it was even making a noise concidering the ad said the engine was rebuilt 30XXXmiles ago. Anyways, I was taking a corner and the thing just stalled out. When I tried to start it, it was just a horrible metal grinding noise.

I do know the tranny was giving me LARGE problems aswell. You could tell the motor and tranny were beaten up bad. Last time I buy a car over the internet, such a bad idea. Anyways, the tranny had no fourth gear at all, and no third gear on downshift, and it would also grind ever gear.

My debate is one of these 2 things blew up, or the clutch, it was shattering bad too, but which one is it? I think it's the engine, but I want it to be the tranny as I have a spare for that.

Specs:
LS swapped wagovan

Cliffnotes to my 3am ramble:
-Got new car, was reliable for 1000miles
-Tranny was giving shifting/grinding problems from the start
-Engine all of a sudden made a knocking noise, got mad, drove it like a little girl the 20 kms home to be safe
-Thing only made it to my neighourhood
-Wondering if engine OR tranny blew up.

 

That sucks man, sorry to hear that. However you really just need to dive into it and inspect before you try and start it again...I would unplug the dist power, "blue/black" plug and try and turn her over and listen...Also have it in neutral...lets try and seperate what went wrong...The fact that it ran fine but the trans was noisy might be just something in the transmission. Let us know what you find out.

Money back also might be in order....lol...

 

You say you took a corner and it died on you? Also that it was burning oil at one point? Is it possible that you were low on oil, took the corner, pickup couldnt get oil, starved the bearings and threw a rod? Loud metal on metal grinding when trying to start it makes me think its something major.

Another thing to check would be that the timing belt is still there and not snapped... you could have been hearing pistons smash into valves.

I dont think a fucked tranny would prevent you from starting the car, unless the clutch literally exploded and youve got peices of it actually stopping the engine from turning.

Only real way to figure it out is to pop the hood, and start pulling **** apart. If youre not comfortable, take it to a mechanic.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by bobjohnson &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You say you took a corner and it died on you? Also that it was burning oil at one point? Is it possible that you were low on oil, took the corner, pickup couldnt get oil, starved the bearings and threw a rod? Loud metal on metal grinding when trying to start it makes me think its something major.

Another thing to check would be that the timing belt is still there and not snapped... you could have been hearing pistons smash into valves.

I dont think a fucked tranny would prevent you from starting the car, unless the clutch literally exploded and youve got peices of it actually stopping the engine from turning.

Only real way to figure it out is to pop the hood, and start pulling **** apart. If youre not comfortable, take it to a mechanic.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I'm quite comfortable with engines, having recently rebuilt my friends GSR for him and swapping in H22s like it's going out of style.

Problem is, I'm poor as expletive. I've been paying my way thru school for a long time and I pretty much spent all my money buying this damn wagon only to have it die on me. I'm contacting the previous owner and saying WTF! rebuilt engine my ***.

I was thinking timing belt, but 3am in a sketchy neighbourhood alone is not the time to be removing parts. I'm getting it towed to my shop. I'll keep you guys posted. This is the first time a car has died on me on the side of the road and has refused to even turn over.

When I checked the oil last night she was only half a liter low, in other words, in the middle of the safe zone. I'm pretty fed up with hondas. I buy them cause they are reliable but I haven't had a reliable one yet.

 

probably because they've been abused and/or aren't stock anymore


a standard motor/tranny thats taken care of will last a LONG time

 

I don't have any helpful advice to offer you, but I can say that Honda's are perfectly reliable stock.

Once you start seriously modifying **** (hybriding) the reliability factor can go to **** pretty easily.