Misfire in 4.3L vortec (cont.)

After looking things over, am also noticing a lot of water coming out of the exhaust pipe and air bubbles on the dipstick. Is this a head gasket? Or is it worse or (please say) better. Would this be the cause of my misfire? I have also listened to the engine closely and the right side cylinders seem to be making a tapping sound, not too loud though, and the left side are pretty quiet, like normal. PLEASE HELP!! Thank you to all of you who have helped out so far.

Reply to
JQuigs1977
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You can't tell anything by these two items. A normal by product of combustion is water....tons of it. If you feel like "tasting" the water, you "might" be able to taste antifreeze if it's in there. The air bubbles on the dipstick are also meaningless, perhaps you've overfilled the oil?

Ian

Reply to
shiden_kai

antifreeze will smoke if it's being burned in the engine. If you're seeing water, clear water, coming from the tail and not smoke, it's a byproduct of combustion gasses and condensation inside the muffler and not an indication of an instrusion of coolant into the cumbustion chamber. In any event you need to perform a cylinder leakdown compression check just to make sure. And the tapping sounds you hear may or may not be normal sounds from the valve train. A skilled tech like myself can usually rule out any abnormalities just from his or her experience in listening to a wide variaty of engine noises. Case in point, I own a 2003 Trailblazer that makes some valve train noise when it's really cold. I would consider this normal. Same goes for my 2004 Vulcan motercycle's V-twin motor except it makes more noise when it's hot. If it didn't make noise, the valve clearance is too tight so some noise is expected depending on the design of the motor.

Reply to
Meat Plow

and air bubbles on the dipstick. Cat Converter is Pluggin up..

Is this a head gasket?

Reply to
Santa

If it's the inline 6 cylinder engine, it's highly unlikely that you are hearing valve train noise. These engines will make noise when cold, but although it might sound like valve train noise, it's the piston making the noise. Same with all the other GM engines that have "piston slap".....everybody assumes it's a valve train noise, when it's really coming from the piston.

Ian

Reply to
shiden_kai

I ran the engine for about 20 seconds and went under to feel the pipes. the drivers side exhaust pipe after the converter was warm and the passenger side seemed quite a bit cooler. I know this may sound stupid, but wouldn't that be a definate sign of a clogged cat converter? and would that be causing the misfire?

Reply to
JQuigs1977

On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 21:03:43 -0500, "JQuigs1977" would that be causing the misfire?

Had the same problem with my S-10, 2.8 V-6. Single exhaust. A clogged converter will foul everything. No power. Little old ladies were passing me, honking their horns.

Reply to
4645

"JQuigs1977" would that be causing the misfire?

One fellow suggests a clogged cat based on air bubbles on the dipstick and you think it's the cat?

The fact that one was warm and the other was cooler could be indicitive of one side running very lean, or one side running very rich. To rule out the cats in one fell swoop, just disconnect the exhaust prior the the cats and see if the problem goes away. If you did have a plugged cat it would likely have set an 02 DTC on that bank anyhow.

Until you run a compression test and verify that everything is sound mechanically you really can't do much of anything else. You still haven't run a compression test have you? Pissing around on here guessing ain't going to fix your truck, so get out the the garage and either run a compression test or disconnect the exhaust pre-cat and see what happens....................

Doc

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Reply to
"Doc"

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