My 89 Camry seems to have thrown a connecting rod the other day, I'm going to look inside to see what exactly is wrong and how bad it is, and I'm wondering why it might have failed in the first place (it only has 205k km on it).
As long as I can remember noticing it, it seems the oil light would stay on for 2 or 3 seconds after I started the car, then go off and not come on again. I assumed thought that was normal as the pressure built up (though looking into it the light seems to go off at 4.3 psi or so). Is the light staying on at all a sign of trouble???
I was all primed to work on isolating the problem, but now it won't start. It turns and turns but doesn't give a sign of taking at all (luckily I brought the highest capacity battery that would fit last winter). It getting fuel and there's a spark on at least one plug, so this might be good news for me (given the noise it was making before).
I'm wondering if it could be a timing belt tensioner, throwing the timing off so bad it won't start??? That could explaiin the oil pressure too, since the same belt drives the pump. I need to take off a tricky engine mount to get too it, and it was rainy and almost dark so I'll get into it on the weekend. Ofc ourse, maybe I should find a timing light...
Question: When I first went to start it, I unplugged one spark plug. Thius wouldn't damage anything would it??? I assume no since I got a spark when i checked it.
If the fault is indeed a broken tensioner spring, its possible the cam timing has jumped due belt slippage. In this case also, some teeth maybe damaged on the belt.
Firstly, Id confirm there is still spark ,..get a helper to hold a well insulated screwdriver up into the plug-boot while holding the handle (of s/driver) so its shaft is about 1/4" gap to the engine block. Then crank the engine. There should be a healthy blue spark.
At this stage a battery charge on low current overnight would help (make sure one battery post is disconnected from its cable-clamp,..tie the clamp so it wont touch the post accidently)
If still nogo after confirming spark,...confirm the distributor rotor is turning while the engin eis cranked. Failure to do this, indicates belt problems. If the dissy does turn,..you'll need to check the basics ie ignition timing. If you have no manual and you think the ig timing needs checking,..post back.
That could explaiin the oil pressure too,
If one lead was not sparking to earth thru a plug, the spark can jump to ea rth via the inside of the distributor cap and in rare cases cause damage to the coil by arcing thru coil insulation,..but this not something one would expect tho. If the spark is present, then it mustbe something else.
The timing belt is turning, as I could see by prying back the cover a bit, but I'm remember now I was wondering if it would be hard to turn the motor with a ratchet, and it turned so easliy (there was a but of comression though, and I could hear the air squeezing out now and then).
Given that I have fuel and a spark, and the starter spins the engine so easily, I'm thinking it must be a compression problem, since I didn't do anything inside the engine, and this car starts in about 3 second in
-30 C after sitting all week...
If it is just a tensioner problem so this is great news, just a pulley or two and maybe a belt - ok,they are only about an inch and a half from the wheel well, but that just makes if more interesting :)
Thanks agian for the advice.
Jas> > I was all primed to work on isolating the problem, but now it won't start.
That compression leaking sound is normal during slow cranking. If you have a short (8" or so) ratchet handle, I'd expect the engine would be fairly difficult to turn. One test you can do here is to crank the engine and listen for any speeding-up of the starter in a periodic way This will put all 4 cylinders thru their compression phase. If one cylinder has damaged valves (bent stems, broken off valve head or broken valve spring,..all can create noise during running) then your starters cranking effort (and therefore speed) will get much easier during that cylinders compression cycle (this will occur during one of the 4 comp cycles encountered).
An early warning that an engine is losing compression on one cylinder is to listen to the starter's whine. If it is constant,..all cyls are the same,..if it has a short flare in revs,..there is a cylinder getting tired,..the higher the flare in revs, the lower the compression of the cyl in question. Also, if there is a real bad bearing or broken piston,..you
*may* even hear the noise you are trying to hunt down, only more subdued of course as there is little load on the engine internals while being cranked compared to making power once running and especially on the road .
Not likely you would suddenly lose compression so much as for the engine to fail to start. You said (I think) the dissy is turning? That confirms the intake cam is also turning,...the exhaust cam is driven off the intake cam by a gearset.
As an aside,..maybe this engine has dropped a valve? Was it idling rough while it was noisy?
You really need a w/shop manual to effectively remove the belt cover. However, here is an excellent description provided by Daniel on how, amongst other things, to get to the belt:
I used a normal 1/2 ratchet and it was simple to turn, it just had a short section where it would bouce back a bit avery few turns. The started can a very even constant whine. It was so smooth at first I thought it wasn't engaging the flywheel...another indication of low/no compression.
With the problem first occured, it didn't seem so bad and I kept driving (20 km down the highway), no oil light and it was like normal. By the time I cam off it was noisy, but still ran fine.
The next day I started it up, but only for a few seconds as the noise was really loud and the oil light stayed on. The engine stuttered too... since it just spins easily now I wonder it slipped a bit each time I turned it off.
Anyway, the talk is moot I just need to look at it (but don't have time until it rains on Saturday...)
I've got the factory manual for at 88, so I'm in good shape there. The engine mount is different in the 89, but if I can't figure that out I should leave the hood shut!
Thanks for that link, it's good to hear from someone who's actually done it. I have an good impact wrench, can that generaly take off a crankshaft pully bolt without turning the engine ??
I took the timing cover off today, the oil pump drive gear was missing 3/4 of its width 1/3 of the way around, and the middle was broken, so spun on the pump shaft... Still don't know why it made such a racket, but there are millions of metal filings under the timing cover...
The timing was off by close to a 1/4 turn, just as well since the oil pump wouldn't be turning if the engine started.
Getting the crankshaft bolt off was no problem with the impact wrench, even with next to no compression in the engine.
Now I just have to clean it up (I'm thinking a strong magnet), and track down a new gear.
Good grief,...hope the engine is not damaged too much,..if the engine oil-light did eventually go out, its possible some of the damage which an engine can sustain with low oil-pressure has been avoided. Once the oil-pump pulley exited all together, the belt tension would have dropped off causing the cam-timing and hence ignition timing to go so far out the engine stopped,...cross your fingers.
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