Hello all...
The vehicle in question is a 2000 Chrysler Grand Voyager, equipped with the
3.3L V6 flex-fuel engine. It has 195,570 or so miles on the odometer. It was going on down the highway one day when it lost power, stalled and rolled to a stop. Upon going to collect it, we found that the engine would start but it ran very poorly and seemed to be out of time. (Some of you might remember my initial post about this approximately one month and some weeks ago.)In that time, we moved the Honda Prelude off the driveway and put it aside.
With the help of one of my brothers, we dropped the oil pan to see what the timing chain looked like. The timing chain is there and might be OK. This concludes the good news portion of our broadcast. Inside the bottom of the oil pan were three large chunks of metal that as best we can tell are the remants of the #2 cylinder piston skirt and a wrist pin. The piston is still connected to the connecting rod and will move when the engine is rotated manually.
There was a surprising amount of sludge in the oil pan. It came a shock to see it, since the van has had its oil changed regularly. It was run on synthetic (Mobil 1) oil of the correct rating. Only occasionally was conventional oil used, and that was when we did not do the changes ourselves. (And yes, we checked the dipstick shortly after having any car lubrication business change the oil.)
So...that leaves me with a few questions. First off, how could this have happened? Was there something we should have been doing, adjusting or using? It doesn't seem like it. Secondly, how likely is it to be worthwhile to repair this or even investigate it further? My brother tried looking up into the cylinder but I don't think he was able to see a whole lot.
There's a video here if it might help anyone to see what happened and the sludge that had accumulated in the oil pan:
William