Speculation, please?

I'm worried about my CJ5. Yesterday while driving home from the trails I got out on the highway and got up to about 75 mph in a hurry to merge, then slowed down to about 65. Maybe 30 seconds later several LOUD bangs/knocks (about 10-15 maybe) came from what sounded like under the hood. With each bang there was a dramatic power drop for a fraction of a second. This happened really quickly like within

25-30 seconds or so. I let off on the gas and it seemed to help a little bit. Each time I'd ease back on the gas the bangs would return. I slowed down to about 50 mph and the banging sound went away. I slowly sped back up to about 60 mph and made it the rest of the way home without incident. I noticed when this all was happening that my oil pressure stayed steady and my water temp was also steady. Then... when I was driving to work this morning I heard 3-4 loud bangs within less than 10 seconds while driving at about 65 mph on the highway. I felt the same power drop and again noticed oil pressure and temp remained unchanged. The problem "went away" again. I'm thinking maybe it's backfiring through the carb (I'll check for burn marks around the air cleaner later today) or maybe...just maybe...I seem to recall a similar feel/sound from about 12-13 years ago when an old Pontiac I had did something like this... turned out it had a couple of lifters that were about to give up the ghost, or pretty much had given up the ghost by the time I opened up the motor and replaced them. Can y'all speculate on best-case/worst-case scenarios? Sorry I can't give a better description of the sound. Ideas of stuff for me to look at? Thank you in advance for input.

-- Travis

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Reply to
travis
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Could be lean fuel mixture, late ignition timing, broken valve spring, or a cam lobe going bad. I'm sure there are others, but this is a start.

Chris

Reply to
c

Does it sound like a backfire?

Reply to
Joe

On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 12:54:45 -0500, "Joe" shared the following:

A little bit... Just got home and looked and don't see any burn marks on the air cleaner.

-- Travis

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Reply to
travis

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 13:37:55 -0500, travis shared the following:

Oh, and it did it again on the way home. It seems like it does it soon after getting on the highway like it's not quite up to good operating temperature yet. By the time I've run at 60+ mph for a couple of minutes the problem seems to go away. Also I noticed I could feel a very slight "pulse" on my right foot that was on the gas pedal each time the bang noise occurred, but could not feel that same pulse on my left foot... which makes me think the carb is somehow involved here, like it's backfiring through it maybe. Still not sure at all.

-- Travis

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Reply to
travis

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 17:48:30 GMT, "c" shared the following:

Could any of those things you listed "come and go," though? If it was lean, wouldn't it be lean all of the time? Late ignition timing...hmm...maybe an intermittent vacuum leak causing the distributor to not advance when it should? Hmm... Broken valve spring? I can't see that causing this problem to show itself for 30 seconds and then let me drive it 1/2 hour without showing up again. Cam lobe going bad? I also think that would be a more persistent problem than what I'm seeing. I like the late ignition timing idea, though. I'll have to poke around and look for a vacuum leak. Thanks!

-- Travis

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Reply to
travis

Travis, does your Jeep have a coil or the motorcraft ignition box? Possibly something shorting one of the connections. Had a Karmann Ghia that did the exact same thing.

Reply to
Wade

I had something similar, fast banging with a momentary loss of power after each bang. It turned out I hadn't changed my wires in a while. I put a new set in, and the problem went away.

Will

Reply to
William Pughe

A lifter that was about to collapse permantly might present this sort of symptom before it finally went bad.

A lifter has small springs and valve thingies inside that cause the oil to flow through in a controlled manner. They can fail internally and then the lifter is stuck in a collapsed condition (because it fails to open the valve when the cam lobe rises), then the next time the cam comes around, that valve doesn't open properly, or at all, and the result is a lost power stroke. This can happen for a few lifters in a row, or one lifter repeatedly. It could be noisy when this happens, and is more likely to happen at high engine speeds than low ones. You might be able to drive around town for years and never even know the lifters were not happy, but get out on the freeway and get the engine speed up to a high level and the lifters can not react as quickly and the time for them to react is shorter.

I can't recall a test for lifters, sorry. That is, they should be able to be pressed on the bench, and should rebound without delay, but you have to pull them to do this test, and then you may as well replace them if you suspect they are bad. What I can't recall is a test that you can do while they are still in place.

I do believe you can get to the lifters without a complete tear down of the motor. If my memory is correct, they live under a plate that is under the intake manifold. You may need to pull the rocker arms and pushrods, but I don't think you have to pull the heads, as you would on the I6 motor that you passed on.

Reply to
CRWLR

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 22:03:31 GMT, "Wade" shared the following:

Coil. Hmm... OK, something else for me to look for. Thank you.

-- Travis

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Reply to
travis

On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 14:19:24 -0800, "CRWLR" shared the following:

Yeah, that's *exactly* what happened on that old Pontiac I had that I mentioned. That's why I said the noise reminded me of when some lifters went bad on that car.

That's exactly how it was for my Pontiac. I removed the rocker arms, pulled the pushrods, removed carb and intake along with the plate (windage tray) under the intake and was able to fight the lifters out. It was obvious which ones were dead when I did that but of course I replaced the whole set. I'm hoping it will be something less major than that, but I can handle the lifter replacement if that's it. It's amazing the racket lifters can cause when they start to go.. :-)

-- Travis

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Reply to
travis

Reply to
L.W.(ßill)

Also I noticed I

is it possible you got some water in your tank? you had just lengthened your fill pipe, could have taken in some water around the join. is your backfire more like a sputter?

Reply to
mason

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 16:53:04 -0800, L.W.(ßill) Hughes III shared the following:

Man, I hope it's that easy.

-- Travis

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Reply to
travis

How about something simple like water in the fuel ... (too lazy to read through all the other responses).

Reply to
bowgus

Backfiring is, by definition, through the intake.

Reply to
Richard J Kinch

Reply to
Roy J

Unless your talking fifteen-bean soup.

GD&R

Reply to
DougW

Reply to
L.W.(ßill)

Reply to
L.W.(ßill)

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