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So the car was running great and then all of a sudden a weird noise came from the engine compartment. It's sounded like a pulsing whistle if that makes any sense. Pulled over and it was a little smoky back there. Car won't restart. It also looks like there is a bit of oil kind of all over, but mainly under the fan belt. Any ideas?
1957 CMC(Flared Speedster)
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Colin,
I would check the alternator stand.If something becomes lodged in the fan, it can cause it to go out of balance. Therefore causing the alternator to shimmy and fracture the base of the alternator stand. Ask me how I know! When making the repair,I found an old piece of fanbelt that had broken some time before lodged behind the fan screwing everything up and causing a catastrophic failure of the alternator stand,thereby puking oil all over the engine compartment. I was 1000 miles from home at the time. What a fiasco!!
From the sound of the description, his engine threw a rod, punched a hole somewhere in the case (spewing oil all over the engine) and died. My personal opinion is that, with an unnatural hole in the case, the engine is toast and is not a candidate for a cheap rebuild.

On the other hand, there seems to be a number of rebuilt engines coming out of the woodwork since this happened, so something may turn up quickly.
Gordon-I wondered what happened as well; but the "symptom" originally described as "sounded like a pulsing whistle..." kinda threw me. Seems like a thrown rod would scream a different tune (your choice, but pick a tune with cymbals and percussion)...
SS
Add: maybe a head stud pulled and created a serious compression loss and created a gusher...if so, could be fixable. Opinions?
A blown rod will be a very distinct and obviously trouble racket if the engine hasn't immediately siezed. If the crank end remainder is short it might run a while with a loud clattering banging, but if it's longer it's just as likely to get jammed either in the hole it made or somewhere else inside the case and stop the rotation NOW.

There wouldn't be any "kept going trying to figure out if the sound was really coming from MY car" sort of discussion about a blown rod. A spun bearing with it's relatively mild siezure might not be so distinct for a short time.

My bet is a overheating and a burnt valve in that order.

A really hot VW can cook the rear seals, or all seals, but one way or another let oil out. From the description oil came through the rear seal and was misted/thrown all over the engine compartment by the crank pulley and belt. Probably got hot and kept going for a while before all hell broke loose. The phht-phht was the valve, engine died of heat, lack of oil, then siezure. A desert VW death.
I know the feeling Colin.

I discovered yesterday in my first sparkplug change that the #3 sparkplug hole is stripped enough to let the plug wobble under my fingertip pressure. This is a complete surprise for a car that is supposed to have only 4500 miles since new.

I know the holes are somewhat delicate in aluminum and all, and I know that the first non-caring or ignorant and ham-handed mechanic can make hash out of aluminum threads, but DANG!, why did I wait until spring to start checking the engine over?

I accept that Murphy requires that if this kind of thing happens it will happen to the worst possible location. I spent 10 working years as a journeyman auto mechanic and accept the fatality of Murphy's laws, but why me? and why now? I was/am gonna' upgrade the engine come next winter but now have to deal with this.
Ken, Heli-Coil is located here in Danbury,CT. Just out of college 50 years ago I briefly worked in their engineering department destruct testing Heli-Coil inserts under all possible conditions and in all possible materials....They work. As I recall there are metric spark plug insert kits for specific threaded lengths.

You'll have to pull the engine of course to install insert for #3 The actual installation is such an easy peasy proceedure that you might as well do the other three too!
It only takes 20 minutes to pull the motor anyway. I would buy a heli-coil kit, fix #3, and check the rest while the motor is out. Only fix the one that is broken though. And yes, heli-coils work very well. Had to do that to some exhaust studs on a wasserboxer(Vanagon) motor.
Heli-coils are use in aluminum, steel an magnesium engines.

Work great.

Ask any mechanic about Ford Triton engines an their spark plugs... We have a guy here in town whose done so many repairs on those, thant he can heli-coil the hole with the head still on the engine (100% success rate - probably does at least one per week).

angela
The copper Saft-coil inserts look good to me. I have an old K-D kit in my toolbox that uses steel inserts and I've got a bunch of 1/2" inserts but I'd rather use the longer ones since the plug is a longer type.

Heli-coil wouldn't be the choice, especially if I attempt it with the head on , since the piece of the coil that engages the insert tool is supposed to be broken off. But I didn't have much use for heli-coil even back when I worked as a mechanic. They can stretch beyond the hole if the tang doesn't break off easily and quickly become a PITA if you have to do a whole series of them.

I don't know yet. I've been considering this engine expendable anyway - only wanting it to last through the summer. So I'm kind of a mind to do the hole in the car and take my chances with the chips in the cylinder. Most will come up on a drill bit and tap, some will blow out by cranking the engine without plugs, and the rest will probably just imbed in the piston or burn up in combustion. I think it'll be OK.
Take a length of rope and oil it. Put it into the cylinder (feed it through, then stuff the last of it in). Do the drill/tap/insert business as needed. Fish the rope out. Nearly all the metal bits stick to the oiled rope.

Then blow it out. What's left, if any should be irrelevant. Obviously if you have a $30,000 engine, don't do this. But on anything affordable, knock yourself out.

angela
angela,

you are the SOURCE for shade tree mechanic tricks. This is a good one. A hemostat on the little Heli-Coil tang might ensure that you do not drop it. And the rope-wad plug should take care of everything, even if you did drop it. One might wonder how well the engine would work if you pushed the rope all the way in? Perhaps having the piston at TDC to start would be a good idea.

Meanwhile, do we have a definitive diagnosis of what went down here? I personally favor the burnt valve as root cause, but there are several worthy guesses here. When is the autopsy?
That's good Colin. I figured you'd have mentioned that the belt was fried if it was but it just seemed like everyone jumped right into complex causes, bypassing the most basic reason for an episode such as you described.

By the way - no need to contain any impulse toward sarcasm on my behalf. I was right with you and enjoyed the fact that you could joke during a catastrophe.
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