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Tech / General EngineIs your car making a strange sound or won't start? Thinking of adding power with a new combination? Need other technical information or engine specific advice? Don't see another board for your problem? Post it here!
She kept having issues so I had to buckle down and buy a new car, of course I didn't trade her in though or have any plans to sell. Anyway over the last two months she sat and has developed a squealing sound. It's not from the accessory belt since I removed the serpentine and it still squealed. It sounds like it's coming from the tensioner or alternator area I just can't figure it out. PosTed a video to YouTube, have a link coming in a minute.
two other things: I seem to be leaking a fluid directly underneath the tensioner, pics to come. And also my tensioner has seemingly rattled no matter how many times it's replaced ever since I changed out my smog pump about a year ago, any ideas? It seems like it's a common problem that no one ever seems to find the issue for but maybe someone has had luck
At the throttle linkage, where you were giving it throttle. THAT shaft that goes through the TB. Spray some carb cleaner around the shaft while its running...if idle goes up, you found a vacuum leak, which MAY whistle.
There's a long hose connected to the fpr, one to the shaft, and another hose that seemingly was seared off and . Dunno where the other end goes. Seems like this is where it's coming from.
Also I cleaned the deal out of the inside my throttle body and the IAC and now the car seems to stumble a little bit, should I have not used the cleaner on the iac? Or did I maybe use too much in the body itself?
Try the carb cleaner as suggested above. You can also try wiggling the throttle up and down, and front to back. Don't turn it though. If the sound changes, you've got a worn throttle shaft as suggested.
On the liquid, is it oil or coolant? Determining that will greatly help in narrowing down the potential leak areas. In your pic, it looks to me like its coolant leaking out around the top water pump bolt. There is a bit of staining under the bolt, and it looks like there may be some liquid under the bolt head. If that's the case, first try taking that bolt out, and putting it back with some RTV on the threads to seal it. If it's still leaking, it's either coming from a cracked water pump or a bad gasket(water pump or intake manifold). If it's oil, it's probably coming from the valve cover.
On the tensioner rattle, try tightening the bolt that holds the pulley on. If they aren't tight, the pulley will rattle. Might also have bad bearings in the pulley.
The pulleys been changed several times and it still rattles, the leak is likely coolant tbh on further inspection so I'm not super worried about that I suppose. I was more worried about it being something worse at the linkage there doesn't seem to be any leaks and no change when I spray the carb there( assuming were talking about exactly where I pulled the throttle) however, there is a hose that connects to the fpr that seems to me missing where it should go and idk where that is
Dunno if this matters. But when I do pull the throttle and release it, it seems to not go all the way back on its own and it's resting spot is here. There is a small gap between the bolt looking object and the throttle switch
Regarding the throttle resting position:
Can you move the throttle back with your fingers until it touches the stop?
If yes -> clean all related movable parts and/or replace spring.
If not -> maybe the latch is bent.
The "bolt looking object" is your minimum idle adjustment screw. Do NOT adjust it.
Edit:
Anyway, the throttle in this position will only cause a higher than normal idle. No squeaking.
Alright thank you, the switch can be pushed Back I'm thinking I'll replace that spring eventually, but again, not the problem unfortunately. I realtor don't want to have to take this to a mechanic
That black hose is the source of your vacuum leak if the other end is not connected or plugged completely. I'm not sure where it's supposed to go as I pulled my V6 out a long time ago. It's not the original vacuum hose though, that one would have been a smaller hard plastic hose. If I had to guess, I'd say it goes to the PCV valve in the valve cover, but I can't remember if those engines had one there or put it somewhere else. If it not going anywhere currently, take it off the T by the regulator and cap the end of the T.
Look here
and follow the routing from the "FUEL PRESS REG. VLV".
The line goes to the throttle body and also splits off into the "AIR MGNT. VALVE".
You should be able to find that.
These are the only two locations in that area I recall having the vacuum hoses attached.
After having five really nice neighborhood mechanics look at it, they determined its a seal for one of my fuel injectors. And currently there is no noise while driving it. It is sluggish in its acceleration but I'm thinking that could be the transmission going/spark plugs maybe fouled(even tho they were changed 3 months ago. It's sat for the last 2 months, I dunno if thats bad for the plugs Or if there would be something that could make them go bad) also my transmission fluid is supposedly 'atleast' a qt low. I'm going to be topping it off soon bu. Would that cause/fix any of my problems?
Acceleration sluggishness could also mean a bad timing setting.
Having a quart too little in the transmission may cause insufficient cooling and cause your clutches to burn out, but I don't think that level's low enough to drastically reduce power transfer through the driveline.
Sitting for 2 months isn't anyhting bad for the plugs as long as there's no engine coolant coming through the heads onto them.
Well, if the locals say it's an injector gasket, you can get those o-rings as a pack.
You'll be needing an upper plenum gasket kit as well, as you have to take the top half apart to get to the fuel rail and pry it out.
Well it's an actual mechanic shop, and I've known the owner for a bit but he was busy so he sent one of his guys to look at the engine bay. After a while poking around he couldn't figure it, so eventually they all just huddled around to find it. Sprayed carb cleaner allllll over( which I'd already done) And Ione randomly found that it was the passenger side injector closest to the nose of the car that was squealing I tested myself after driving it long enough for squealing to come back and then repspraying. So what exactly would I need to buy? Plenum gaskets and 'o ring gaskets'? Regardless of whether or not I do it myself or let the shop do it, he's always let me buy the parts myself and just charged me a random labor price(generally very good) so I just want to know what items I'd have to buy
Edit: one taken my plenum apart atleast 4x when I worked on my fuel pressure regulator last summer. You can find the thread under 'whar part is this, it's leaking fuel all over my engine' I messed up a lot and eventually found it right(leading to the plenum disassemble and reassemble) should I change the gasket out regardless?
Keeping in mind that you want to fix a not so easy to discover leak, I would opt for a gasket kit.
Yes, there's only air hitting those gaskets, so they don't tend to get sticky and rip up quite so quickly, but I'd go for it.
They're not that expensive (at least not for you guys in the US ).
Looking at Rockauto.com you can get the plenum base gasket, the left and the right gasket, as well as the throttle body gasket individually or as a kit, and in your case I'd get all four of them.
HAHAHA! 38 Cents for a throttle body gasket... ridiculous ^^
The injectors and the base are so close together and you can never know if it's really the injector gasket or the base, IMO.
Then you'd need a fuel injector o-ring kit. I'd go for the kit, not just the rubber rings, in case you have to look at the other end of the injectors.
If you decide to remove the injectors from the fuel rail, please take care to relieve the pressure first.
Oh no. Its definitely the fuel injector. I've tested it a few times since last night, the squeal clearly stops when it's sprayed directly onto the injector that's closest to the bumper on the passenger side, there is a pretty clear view to it. is changing out the injectors a tough job? The mechanic who helped me yesterday was very nice and clearly told me what the issue was, should I attempt this job myself or pay for it? If it's expected to take longer than 3-4 hours or is higher than 7~ on the difficulty scale I''ll probably pass. If it's just taking the plenums off and unscrewing some stuff I could probably do that
If it's the lower o-ring of the injector, then at least you don't need to release the pressure.
To keep it easy:
- Disconnect the tv cable and gas pedal cable from the throttle body
- Remove the two bolts from the throttle body so you can move it around
- Remove the outer bolts of the upper plenum half
- Possibly loosen the bracket of the tv cable and gas cable
- Remove the vacuum hose from the back of the upper plenum
- Pry out the fuel rail with any kind of lever from the left and right sides. Be careful not to damage the sealing surfaces of the lower plenum and don't exact too much force to break the plenum.
As you've had it apart a few times, nothing should be sticking to any other part and you should be able to have it apart in 30 minutes.
I don't think it's the upper ring of the injector, because then you'd have fuel spraying everywhere, so this should be all.
Yeah, that's what I would say for your case.
I just remembered that you need to loosen the bolt from the clamp that holds the fuel lines in place at the front of the engine, so you'll be able to move the fuel rail at all.
To remove an injector from the rail you'd need to pull the locking clip out.
You'll see how that works should you have to do that.
The difficulty with the fuel rail is that your injectors all point outward, away from it.
Just like this (number 7 is a locking clip, by the way):
You need to pry from one side, then the other, and vice versa, until you get it loose, because the rubber rings do keep the injectors in place quite sturdily.
That's why I had this giant iron bar in the picture further up. Didn't have anything smaller at hand
Awesome. So I was at a junkyard this morning and played doctor on a 2.8 earlier. I pulled out the fuel rail to see what the process was like, seemed straightforward to get it out for the most part, it was a pain to take the lock clip Off though and I broke at least one. How necessary are they?
Also, i was on a time crunch, but it was very difficult trying to get the fuel with injectors back in. Are there any tricks to getting it back in? You just push the injectors into the fuel rail and then shove the whole assembly back down in, correct?
I think the locking clips need to be rotated, not pulled.
They are indeed necessary, because the pressure could lift the fuel rail slightly off the injectors and cause a bad seal.
Probably that bolt securing the rail would have to disappear first.
I wiggled the rail with injectors attached back into place and pressed down on the rail in the end.
There is some movement in the holes where the injectors meet the rail, which allows for the wiggling.
Not sure if it's possible to first stick in the injectors, then the fuel rail and then still get to the locking clips.
That's something you'd need to try if you're taking everything apart that far.
Regarding the throttle resting position:
Can you move the throttle back with your fingers until it touches the stop?
If yes -> clean all related movable parts and/or replace spring.
If not -> maybe the latch is bent.
The "bolt looking object" is your minimum idle adjustment screw. Do NOT adjust it.
Edit:
Anyway, the throttle in this position will only cause a higher than normal idle. No squeaking.
Can't figure out how to remove and replace the spring inside this. Pulled this from a 1989 2.8. Should I just pull my whole unit off and put this on? Would they be compatible? Would it affect the idle position with the screw or should they both be the same?
IIRC, the 2.8 has a different IAC and looks different than the 3.1 TB. Don't know it you can exchange them.
The idle screw is set in the factory and sealed up so you can't turn it without punching the screen.
To replace the spring, you need to remove the tiny torx screws on the throttle blade, the blade itself and then you should be able to remove the pin with all that's attached to it.
It turns out my spring is just fine though. In the process of doing my fuel injectors(over the course of a few days due to time constraints) and my spring clings back just fine when there's no cables attached to it. What could be causing my throttle to stick open some with the cables on?
Removed my plenum earlier today. And sprayed around to get rid of gunk with the few minutes I had this morning around the Injectors so nothing falls in the holes
04-30-2015, 01:24 PM
