Well, maybe not woes yet. But definitely going to become woe soon. 98 Escort S/W, 2.0L OHC.
For a couple of weeks now, it's been making an intermittent ticking noise, mostly when warm. Sounds very much like a frayed belt flapping against something, but the serpentine looks OK. Noise might also be exhaust escaping from a valve. At a guess, the ticking is 1/10th the engine rpm.
Friday afternoon I started it (in the wet, I might add) and it was running VERY poorly, sounded like one cyl wasn't firing. I switched off, and then couldn't start it for about 25 minutes. In that 25 minutes, I was poking about with the plug and injector wires; unplugged and reseated everything. At last, it started after about 15 seconds of keying - normally it starts INSTANTLY. Drove normally
Yesterday while going off an exit ramp the engine suddenly lost power and started vibrating oddly, just like it was missing a cyl again. After a few minutes it steadied back into normal power.
Ran it in the dark and cannot see arcing anywhere.
Pulled off the head cover and it looks nasty in there - the oil was changed about 300 miles ago but it's very dark already. I also smell gasoline in the oil.
Is this maybe a valve problem, or could this be a timing belt with a bad tooth? What's the difficulty level of replacing the belt on one's lonesome; go in through the right wheel well? need to remove engine mount or no? It has almost 130K on it; the engine was replaced with a junkyard pull at about 100K but I've no idea whether they used a new belt.