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Some of you followed the saga of my 94 cde. To recap,
September, 2004 I bought the car on Ebay for cheap. The car doesn't run. But all it needed was a new battery. the turbocharge was shot. The first weekend after I got the car, I started to remove the drive train to convert it to 5 speed.
I found the engine has sludge. At 142k miles the PO probably didn't change oil often. The conversion did not finish until New Years day 2005 because of parts supply and I wasn't in a hurry to complete it either.
Following conversion I started the AutoRx treatment. I finished the first cleaning cycle of 2,000 miles. During the subsequent rinse cycle, the car stalled while my son took it to school. It was towed home. But it can be started. Except the oil light was on, accompanied by loud valve tapping noise.
I think it was July, 2005 already, maybe later. The car was left unused in the driveway for much of the time. Occasionally I drove it around the block with the oil light on and loud valve tapping and I was scratching my head.
Finally in Thanksgiving I decided to remove the engine to look. The discovery of a loose oil pump snap ring gave me brief hope it was the cause of the oil light. But it was short lived. After I reinstalled the snap ring, the engine oil light was still on. I installed the oil pump snap ring the wrong way during assembly of the engine in conversion. The tapered side of the snap ring should be facing outside. I had it facing in. It came loose after only 4,000 miles.
Removal of the engine revealed the damage. The incorrectly installed snap ring came loose after 4,000 miles. It caused oil starvation because the pump was losing pressure on the pump cover which was no longer held by the snap ring. Oil starvation caused the balance shaft to have insufficient lubrication. One of the shafts soon seized. The seized shaft took out the balance shaft chain. The broken chain scoured a hole on the oil pump suction passage at the bottom of the timing cover. When the hole on the oil passage was created, engine oil in the sump can no longer be pumped up. I think loud valve tapping noise started then. But the engine still starts except it wasn't driven afterward except once or twice around the block.
Being somewhat anal about keeping the engine stock, I used parts left from a '94 engine to restore the balance shafts and balance shaft chain. After everything is put together, the car ran but two more problems were revealed. There was a lot of smoke in the exhaust because the damaged turbocharger was now exposed when oil supply was restored. And there was persistent flickering oil light when the engine revolution is below 1,000 to 1,200 rpm. The flickering light doesn't come on until the engine is warm.
The tubocharger was easy to fix. A replacement quickly took care of the smoking exhaust. There were no boost issues.
Before Christmas, the car stalled again on the highway close to home. Again I removed the engine. Found one of the balance shaft installed was wobbling. The sump has some soft metal shaving because of the wear. I suspect there was already some wear inside the shaft bearing when I put the balance shaft in during Thanksgiving. Now I have no more spare parts in the garage. I removed the balance shaft chain this time and put the engine back together. It did not fix the flickering oil light of course.
So the 94cde has a flickering oil light after the engine is warm at idle and when the engine speed is below 1,100 rpm. I searched the archive. There are a few instances of engine oil light on. But I did not see any follow up. My guess is the outcome isn't good. My plan now is to keep driving it until the engine dies thinking the damage is already done. The other day I poured another bottle of AutoRx in as the second phase of treatment.
The car still has a lot of pep being a turbo. When it eventually dies I think I'll drop another used engine in. Anyone has any predictions how many more miles that will be?
posted by 69.248.96...
, Sun, 26 Feb 2006 09:48:57
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