Need Help Understanding Source of Engine Noise

[JohnGunn]

Don't the Aspire B3s have rollers on the rocker arms? No HLAs then. I too hear the clicking in the valve train though.

Sounds like a bearing to me. Might also explain why has a specific range of RPMs that create the resonant noise.

Thanks for the response, Zack. It is much appreciated.

My engine does have rollers, but the other end of the rocker arm still has to contact the valve stem so there are HLAs there. Or at least so says my service manual.

I'm leaning toward some bearing/journal contact. Caused, perhaps, by not enough oil pressure to dampen the lateral movement of the crankshaft at the rpm where crankshaft imbalance is harmonically amplified.

[TominMO]

Sounds just like already stated, timing belt rubbing on the cover.
Pull the top half off and run the engine, see if it goes away.

That was my first thought too.

[JohnGunn]

That B3 is thirsty! No oil in that valve train! Bad oil pump? Does the oil light go out at all?

Thanks, scitzz. Not exactly what I wanted to hear, even though my own ears tend to agree with yours. I should stress that the recording made the noise sound a lot more serious than it sounds live.

As stated earlier, it takes 1.5 seconds for the oil light to go out at start up after sitting over night. One good thing is that I have never seen the oil light so much as blink while the engine is running. I know that doesn't mean a lot. The light is connected to a switch that my electrical manual says turns on when the pressure drops to 4.3 psi or less.

[JohnGunn]

That was my first thought too.

Thanks, Tom. Maybe there's hope for my Aspire yet. Drinks all around if you and econoaddict are right.

Duly noted, and moved up higher on the list of things to try.

[JohnGunn]

How many more posts before I move up from member?

Too bad posts are not weighted for length. If that were the case I'd be a

:wav::wav::wav:
:wav:Mega Super Member:wav:
:wav::wav::wav:

by now, several times over.

I could write more, but what's the use?

[nitrofarm]

Maybe the same sludge thats plugging the oil return drains has been sucked up into the oil pump pick up.

[JohnGunn]

Maybe the same sludge thats plugging the oil return drains has been sucked up into the oil pump pick up.

That is a possibility. More than a few times I've read on the Internet of this happening. I just looked in my Ford Service Manual and found the following:

"If the pressure is not within specification, check the following possible sources:
a. Insufficient oil
b. Oil leakage
c. Worn or damaged oil pump
d. Clogged oil strainer
e. Excessive main bearing clearance
f. Excessive connecting rod clearance"

If sludge could clog holes in the head the size of a nickel, why not clog some of the openings in the screen over the opening of the oil pump input tube.

As you can probably tell, I'm looking for problems that might lend themselves to being fixed by some magic chemical additive. And this would certainly be one of those -- at least in theory.

Thanks for thinking about my problem and helping.

[nitrofarm]

Pull that oil pan John. If its sludged that bad,you dont want to dissolve that crap and circulate it through your entire oil system. Jus my 2 cents. But thats assuming your problem is sludge related........

[JohnGunn]

Pull that oil pan John. If its sludged that bad,you dont want to dissolve that crap and circulate it through your entire oil system. Jus my 2 cents. But thats assuming your problem is sludge related........

I guess my hope would be that whatever sludge is freed would end up in the Mobil 1 filter that I've installed in the engine.

In addition, I plan on using this large, high resolution, mechanical, oil pressure gauge to monitor the actual effect the treatment is having, as well as measuring the drain down times of the engine to see how that might be affected by the treatment.

Over and above all this, I have decided during the treatment to use my car only sparingly and at low speed in light traffic conditions to place the minimum amount of stress on the engine. I'll be listening carefully to the engine and checking the quality of the oil. In short, doing everything I can think of to insure the engine is not harmed in the process.

I'm not very optimistic about the end result of all this, but feel I would be foolish not to give such an easy fix at least a chance. Had I a place where I could work on the car over several days, I might skip this and go directly into the engine to examine the condition and take whatever actions are indicated. But, along the side of a city street is not that place. Buying a low mileage car, I thought would spare me all this bother. Wrong, yet again.

Nevertheless, nitro, thanks for your continued interest and help.

[boydg1]

.... Have you done a compression check on ALL of the cylinders? Might NOT be a bad idea. How's the alternator doing, are the bearing dry or is the belt too tight? Do you still have the same amount of power when you put your foot on it? What weight motor oil are you using? Just some ideas to kick around.
.

[JohnGunn]

.... Have you done a compression check on ALL of the cylinders? Might NOT be a bad idea. How's the alternator doing, are the bearing dry or is the belt too tight? Do you still have the same amount of power when you put your foot on it? What weight motor oil are you using? Just some ideas to kick around.
.

Thanks for the suggestions, boydg1.

I haven't done any compression tests. This 94 Aspire with 81,000 miles has less pep than my 90 Festiva when I let it go at 184,000 miles, but that may be because the Aspire weighs at least 400 pounds more than my Festiva. Aside from that I've seen no indication that the rings are not sealing -- no blowby, no smoke, no build up in the tail pipe, perfectly normal spark plug color, uses no oil at all, and passed California SMOG test with no problem the day before I bought it.

The alternator bearings seem to be about half full of grease when I turn it by hand. No noise and no free spinning. My stethoscope doesn't reveal any unusual noises. I have removed the belt and cleaned it and all three pulleys in preparation for adjusting the belt to the minimum tension that still prevents squealing from slipping. Plan to install it and experiment with tension to find that place tomorrow.

Power has not diminished since I bought it 10 months ago.

I have been using Mobil 1 5W-30 High Mileage, but I'm thinking, since I have no leaks at all, that I will stop using the High Mileage oil. It occurs to me that the additive they add to stop seal leaks might be slowing down flow of oil through other narrow passages where I need it to be flowing more freely.

Hope you will continue to follow my threads and contribute whenever you have something you think I should consider.

[JohnGunn]

After members have had a chance to express themselves I'll return here with my own speculations, together with what I know of the history of the car, which may or may not be helpful.

I thought I would get to this sooner, but better now than never.

The previous owner, the second owner of the car, said she bought it at an auction. There were two low mileage Aspires that she was interested in. The first one she stopped biding when she reached her limit. So, when mine came up she adjusted her limit upwards. I didn't ask what she paid.

She did tell me that when she bought the car, about a year and a half before she sold it to me, it had only about 45,000 miles on it. In the time she owned it she worked as a contractor to a bank, inspecting houses that were being foreclosed. There must have been a lot of them. In that year and a half she added 33,000 miles to the odometer. My guess is that the majority of that mileage was Interstate highway travel.

When I got the car the oil was pretty thick and black. From the receipt it appears that that oil had been in the engine for just about 7,000 miles. The sticker on the window said next change should have taken place on 8/31/2010 or 75,000 miles. I'm thinking she didn't understand that she was to change the oil when the first of those conditions was met and thought that she could chose whichever one suited her best.

She said the original owner had been "an old gentleman" who lived in Santa Barbara, California. She also gave me to believe that the car had been garaged for its whole life, including the time that she had owned it. With that in mind I'll show you the picture she sent of the engine when I asked for one before taking the bus up to buy it.

https://sites.google.com/site/followthevoice/internetfileserver/EngineBeforeIBoughtIt.JPG

I would say the dirt on this garaged engine suggests it had never been cleaned. You can imagine the first thing I did when I got it home.

When I told people about the car I was looking for, I described it as low mileage and original. By that I meant no repaint or accidents, and no rebuilt engine or extensive repairs. I didn't mean I wanted it to still have its original air filter, fuel filter and spark plugs. But that appears to have been the case. Here is a picture of the air filter. I have never seen one this covered with dirt.



The small inset picture in the lower right corner is of the other side of the filter, showing its original color.

The fuel filter is a Mazda brand filter that was not sold in the US, I guess because they never sold a car with a B3 engine here. So I would say that was the filter used when the car was built in Korea.

The gaps of the spark plugs were extremely eroded. Using the formula for calculating the amount of erosion per 10,000 km found on this page, it appeared they had been used for between 60,000 and 90,000 miles. They were Motorcraft plugs and at 78,000 miles must have been installed when the car was assembled. In spite of that, they functioned perfectly and easily passed California SMOG inspection at that mileage.

All of this suggests to me that neither one of my Aspire's two previous owners were much concerned with even the most basic maintenance required by an automobile. If they didn't bother changing plugs and filters might they have not bothered to change the oil? That's why I suspect the slow drain down times and the engine nosies could be related to an oil system clogged with sludge or compromised by wear.

I should also say that the engine burns zero oil, the tail pipe is completely clean, the spark plugs, aside from the extreme erosion, look perfectly normal, there are no leaks of any oil and it has never showed any signs of smoke.

Considering these facts, I believe the slow drain down times are likely to be caused by sludge build up, and plan to address that with an oil system cleaning additive. I'm thinking I'll start with 8 oz of Seafoam. I'll monitor the drain down times and the engine oil pressure to judge whether it is helping and, if not, move on to more Seafoam or maybe ATF. or something else. During that time I'll use the car sparingly and carefully to avoid doing any additional damage to the engine.

As always, your comments are encouraged and welcome.

[Safety Guy]

Sounds like a plan. Good luck!

Karl

[JohnGunn]

Installed the Harbor Freight "Mechanical Engine Oil Pressure Gauge" on the 30th of June.

rpm - first reading - reading after filter change

• 700 rpm (Idle) - 10 psi - 10 psi
• 1000 rpm - 15 psi - 16 psi
• 2000 rpm - 40 psi - 43 psi
• 3000 rpm - 52 psi - 52 psi

To check if the oil filter might have been clogged I changed it after taking the first pressure test. The tests after the change suggested the filter was not clogged. Also, I cut the old filter apart to find that it didn't seem clogged.

Between the 2000 rpm readings and the 3000 rpm readings the pressure went up 65 psi at 2800 rmp where it suddenly dropped down to below 52 psi and started building pressure up as it approached 3000 rpm. I assume that drop was caused by the oil pump relief valve opening.

I also took samples of the engine oil before the first pressure reading and after running the engine to circulate the oil through the new filter.

After the filter change I added 6 oz. of Seafoam to the engine.

Next I added 4 oz. of Seafoam through the spark plug holes and allowed that to soak for a couple of days. Then, 4 oz. more through spark plug holes and allow to soak for another couple of days. The night before I started the engine I squirted some engine oil into the holes and allowed it to stand until the next day.

When I started the engine a fair amount of smoke came out of the exhaust. Only lasted a few minutes. I haven't noticed any dramatic increase in power due to the Seafoam put into the cylinders.

Since then I have been using the car every day in some easy driving trips. Hope the Seafoam will begin to darken the oil soon. If not I'll add a few more onces until I start to see results. I also plan to monitor engine oil pressure, oil color, and drain down times after the Seafoam shows the first signs of extra sludge in oil.

Would anyone care to comment on my oil pressure readings? I'm assuming they are OK, if not great.

[FestYboy]

idle pressure is LOW, would prefer to see better than 20psi even when warm. the seafoam and oil you put into your cylinders should have been blown out BEFORE firing the engine, lest you cause damage to the cat.