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Over the last month did a top end work on the engine plus cleaning and painting several additional heat shields and such.
Engine work included taking off the head, replacing head gasket, valve guides and seals and resealing the front and the filter housing and replacing all the belts.
This is the first time I attempt any engine work so I tried to follow the workshop manual closely.
This week, I finished closing the engine ran the engine and started driving with it - taking it easy.
Engine idles well and pulls fine.
During the initial drives, I heard some loud vibration noises at around 2600-3000 rpm, but I attributed it to a probable loose nut on one of the heat shield.
Today, I went over all of the heat shields and made sure they are tight.
The noise is still there and I am now concerned it may be coming from somewhere in the engine.
My first suspicion was the balance belt and gears, so I took the covers off, brought the engine to TDC and verified the gears were at the direction I set them at TDC. They seems fine to me, but I am a novice here, so I took some photos and video and maybe someone will be able to correct me or point me to more tests I can do to figure out the root cause:
upper balance shaft gear
lower balance shaft gear
I do not have the photos, but the engine is at TDC (both the line on the flywheel and the mark in the camshaft inspection hole)
Here is also a short video I took of the vibration sound.
After carefully going over the diagram in the workshop manual and watching a few videos, I think the lower balance shaft gear is incorrectly installed.
The shaft key is inserted to the "O" opening which is incorrect.
I will redo it tomorrow and update
Assuming this is indeed the problem and the balance shaft was actually adding vibrations instead of minimizing them, what are the implications of driving like this for a few hours (about a 100 miles)?
99% of the drive was under 2500rpm, but I did start pushing higher int he rpm in the last 10 miles.
It's probably ok. We did a season on our chumpcar with this problem. Some bolts backed out, but nothing broke. Reinstall correctly and keep driving it.
If you wanted to check bolts, the ones we lost were the alternator tensioner and the set screw for the distributor rotor. It also shook our exhaust to pieces a couple of times.
11-02-2017, 04:14 PM
Strong vibration sound after some engine work
