Hi everybody it'* been a while since I have visited, I have been caught up in school work, but this is the one place I know I can always return and be welcome. I am having some big problems with my engine I will try and give as much detail as I can.

It started yesterday. I was on the onramp and really romped on it to get around a semi. The car just wasn't acting right. I though it was the transmission slipping so I slowed down a bit and shifted into drive. I drove probably 5 miles in drive going about 65mph then down a big hill and slowed down to a stop light. When I stopped I pushed it back up into OD. The car about died, oil pressure went down and check gauges light came on. Shifted into neutral and revved it a little to keep it running. It started making some bad clicking sounds from under the hood. I was in the left lane and had to get over as the stoplight turned green. I slipped through the traffic and made it to the shoulder. The car almost sounded like it was knocking but wasn't a big thump sound like a knocking sounds like. This sounded like it was more a the top of the engine, almost like there was just something stuck in the belt and was getting hit. My dad drove buy and stopped leaving the car there, what luck. We came later and got in with the trailer. Today I went out and started digging praying it was just something at the top of the engine, i.e., rocker arm, push rod ext. First off came the valve covers, nothing there, then the oil pan and everything look OK on the engine, but there was some aluminum shavings in the oil pan, from under the engine I turned the motor over and couldn't see any bad markings on the cylinder walls or the cam shaft, but couldn't see it very well. I took off the upper and lower intake (which was pretty easy, for those of you that remember I just replaced the upper intake and lower gasket a couple of months ago), from here I could see the length pushrods, and looking down each hole the intake valves. Everything looked OK here too. Now since I had a drop in oil pressure I headed to the oil pump. This became a bigger job. After getting the harmonic balancer off, I had to take the torque engine mount, the tensioner pulley, and the power steering pump off before I could get the engine cover off. After getting the cover off and messing with the oil pump I sounded pretty clean and had pressure still because just turning it by had made oil come out of it. So now I am at a stand still all of this took most my day and the 4 hours of sleep just wasn't enough to keep up. Next comes the heads so I can get a closer look at everything in the cylinders. If anybody has any ideas or thoughts on what could be wrong please let me know. Oh also I pulled the spark plugs and they all looked ok, no oil and not smashed so something big isn't floating around in there.

Thanks
Michael

I hope you didnt rip apart your engine for somthing as stupied as a mas air flow sensor... (if you unplug them they go into paniac mode..but atleast it will run)

From your intitial description it doesnt sound like an engine problem at all, more like a transmission torque convertor issue?
This noise that you heard while idling were you in park or neutral?
Where did it localize too?

You can pull the heads (you've gone this far) but I doubt theres anything wrong in there?

yeah but the torque converter wouldnt make the sudden drop in oil pressure would it. something similar happend to my car and i wound up collapsing the rings in 2 of my cylinders. i didnt score the walls, but they were still collapsed. i didnt know better so i replaced the engine with one from the junkyard , my junkyard guy gives an excellent warranty, but anyways that is something you may want to check out. i took my engine apart for kicks and found that to be the engine. did you happen to see smoke or was it just a temp drop in the pressure. all these options that everyone is giving you is worth looking at!!!!!! sorry that you are having all these problems. if it makes you feel anybetter, my car is in the shop and it is the second shop in two weeks!!!!! All for my friggin computer>>>LOL>>>> Please let us know how it turns out!!!

Ok, I found out what is wrong with it. I went out to pull the heads off and my dad was in the shop working out. He crawled under the car while i turned the crank with a ratchet. Well on of the crank arms is messed up. it is really loose and you can see where the metal was stripped off. So I will need to pull that crank arm out and see what other damage there is to the crank itself. If I get lucky there isn't much damage to the crank and I just can pull the head and replace the crank arm. But that seems a little to good to be true. I will probably end up finding a used engine with lower miles and putting in it. Since that can almost be done for as much as it would cost to rebuild it.

Good luck, PC. Keep us posted. And get pics up if you can.

Good find on your dads part, hope the crank is fine.

This is what is known as spinning a bearing. Your oil pressure is not dictated by your oil pump but the resistance to flow, which is the bearings themselves. I have rebuilt a number of engines that have spun bearings and they have never been a cheap fix. The babbit material as well as possibly the bearing backplates have circulated through your entire system. By the time that it starts knockinh, you have a lot of play and theat rob is banging back and forth right on the crank. My bet is that the crank is damaged. You have 3 options here.

1. Get a used engine.
2. Get a new (rebuilt) engine.
3. Tear this one apart, clean, get crank checked and probably machined undersized and new matching bearings. This is alot of work. Almost as much as a total rebuild (cost wise) and as much work wise.

I hate bad news such as knocking engines and sudden loss of oil pressure. It is rarely an easy fix. Sorry,

My oil pressure did raise back up. I don't think this maters though. Is there anyway of checking the crank without taking it out of the motor? It would be so great if I could just pull the head and that cylinder and fix just that one. But I know it can't be this easy.

You can rebuild the lower when the engine is still in the vehicle. You end up removing the oil pan and then by rotating the crank you can get to the rod end caps. Do one at a time by taking off the end cap and tapping the bearing around and out with a flat plastic ..stick..for lack of a better word. It has to be plastic so it can bend around the journal without scoring it. The main bearings can be done the same way. The front is usually the worst because it seems tight but had a buddy press or pull down on the balancer and it should give you the clearance you need. I did this on my pickup one (even harder because of the crossmember, I had to tilt the engine right up!!). Tap the new bearings in and torque to spec. If you get industrious, you could check the clearance with that red thread wax thingies...(damn, name is escaping me right now). Good luck, hope this helps.