92 caravan 3.0 v6 w/52k - blown motor

I posted this to rec.autos.makers.chrysler to get some ideas as to what might have let loose in this motor: "This is a church vehicle used to get the mail, deliver groceries, cart the nuns around, etc. Since it's life with us around 1995 or so it's not been beat on and has been taken care of. Monday we took it to the boss' house 10 miles away and back. Then it was driven another ten to my coworker's house and parked for the night. Tuesday morning he warmed it up (it's winter here) and left his house. Not 1/2 mile up the road it made a noise like a belt let loose and started smoking out the exhaust (white smoke - head gasket?). I told him to try to limp it in and watch for the temp and/or oil lights. He called me about 5 minutes later and said the oil light came on and he had parked it on the side of the road. When I got there there was oil on the ground and a hole a bit smaller than a tennis ball in the front side of the block. Needless to say, I towed it from there back to the church. I find it quite odd that the motor gave no warning whatsoever. I find it odd also that it only has 52k on it. I've looked around and all I can find for the most part is people having trouble with blown head gaskets on this motor. Anyone heard of this happening before or know what might cause the motor to blow like this? Could the head gasket have blown and the continued driving (about 1 mile) caused it? I checked the coolant and it was right up to the radiator neck. So it doesn't appear any leaked out. If it was a rod or bearing, why did it give no warning? The vehicle has never had any engine trouble to this point. Anybody have any ideas? At this point I'm just curious. The value of the van, both monetary and what we now need it for, doesn't justify dropping another motor in it. TIA"

Being taken care means oil changes, brakes, fluids, maintenance, etc. The next oil change was due in another 1k.

Reply to
mazdaman85
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A good a guess as any would be a spun bearing that welded to the crank plugging the oil passage in the crank. Very short amount of time to rod letting go.

Or the timing belt let go and a valve dropped onto a piston and jammed the hole up to force a rod out the side.

Only way to confirm the issue is to open the pan and look, or pull a timing belt cover off to see if the belt is intact. But like you say the van may not be worth an engine or alook. Having said that, other's may disagree given the miles on it and assumed condition. If it were close to my place, I might make an offer on the remains. I don't suppose you are a Canadian Catholic living in the Canadian winter capitol of Winterpeg?

Pete

Reply to
pete selby

Bet it threw a rod, and the shrapnel holed the block. You get no warning with something like that. I had an old Volvo that self-destructed the same way. If a blown gasket caused enough of a coolant leak to cause a piston to seize, that might do it.

Reply to
Christopher Green

The 4.0 v6 is a non-interference engine so I don't think that happened.

You guys ought to come over to the Chrysler newsgroup and read the entire thread. mazdaman doesen't even want a van and apparently the church is not interested in it either, they seem to want to buy a light truck. It's a mystery as to why he's still wanting to know why this engine self-destructed, as he was told why in the Chrysler newsgroup. I guess he didn't like the answer he got there.

One critical piece that he is leaving out in this forum is that the van started making a funny noise and steaming, so the driver stopped it, and called him and asked what to do he told the driver to drive it a couple more miles back to the church, whereupon it blew up in the parking lot.

The problem seems to be that mazdaman didn't like being told that the engine broke because he told the driver to keep on driving once the engine started to make a strange noise. Apparently mazdaman seems to think that engines are supposed to have safety modes so that when they are getting ready to seize up, you are supposed to be able to drive them another 10 miles without them completely seizing. hopefully he has learned to take better care of the new truck that they are going to get.

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

That would be the 3.0 v6. Haven't seen the 4.0 engine.

Reply to
pete selby

Damn! Guess I need to do a better job proofreading!

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

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