144 replies to this topic

[92_rugby_subie]

Well, I can assure you that GD doesn't have a clue as to the forces at work here. Take a look.

I have measured it all up and as you can see, the suction and abrasion is enough to suck the finish right off the oil pan.


Did he replace the o ring on the oil pickup tube? NM. It will have more suction on it now.


Sincerely,

Doug

I suggest you stop payment.

There are a few things Id like to do with your .02...

That I shall not mention...

I guess your concern is cool... but if any Subaru were gonna have a problem with GDs method of sealing the oil-pan... It would be mine. I bashed in the oil pan, did my best to straighten it out and resealed it with the engine still in the car and I drive my car like I stole it. 1st to 2nd gear shifts are 90% of the time 5K+ rpms and all other gears at around 4K. I dont have the TOD, I dont have low oil pressure, I dont experience ANY issues, and I have a leaking headgasket... When I do the engine swap, JUST for you, I will pull my oil pan off, gut it and see if "the suction and abrasion" caused any issues in my oil pan. Doubt it will though.

[Stubies Subie]

Ok, we got more results with the acetone cleaning this weekend, but not in the direction I had hoped.

Before we continue with this build any further, I'm sure as you read this you will realize, there is a problem with the engine.

The problem we're experiencing with this engine is in no way the result of any work performed by anyone, it's a problem that would have been impossible to see until the engine was in the car and running, and it's not specific to an EA82, the same thing could have happened if we had done an EJ22 swap

This is no one’s fault and in no way, shape, or form do I blame anyone for what happened, it was just a fluke. I'm not mad at anyone, I'm not even upset about it, to me it's nothing more than just another challenge.

So please, if you’re going to place blame on anyone or accuse anyone of anything, then I'd rather you kept your thoughts to yourself.

It just happened. The problem may work itself out, or it may not, in the event that it doesn't work itself out, I'm already on the lookout for another "EA82" rebuilder.

But as low cost cars go, and as most of us are always short on funds, let’s try to get this one working for as little as possible, so bare with us as we try different procedures to see if we can somehow get our compression back.

I hope you understand this posting, and why I wrote what I did, so no flame throwing!

ok, on with the build

Statistics on the car:
900 miles to date
Burning 1 quart of oil every 100 miles

last weekend, GD tested the compression and got lower readings then I did, I believe the difference in readings between his test equipment and mine is due in fact to my compression tester being really old, and spending the last 30 years banging around in my tool box, so I believe his readings to be more accurate than mine

he worked over the passenger side front cylinder on Sunday: before the acetone treatment, he got 90 lbs compression, after treatment he got 70.

now while that may sound bad, I see that as good news, because, if there wasn't any debris between the rings, then General Disorders treatment wouldn't have had any affect at all, the fact that it did have an effect, and went down, tells me there's junk in there that needs to get cleaned out. and maybe some carbon deposit got lodged between a ring and the cylinder wall. who knows? but the readings did change.

I got a compression tester identical to the one GD uses so our numbers match, I believe the numbers I gave originally a few posts back were to high, because my tester read high.

So where am I at with the car now?

After 900 miles, the compression numbers sound terrible, but it is running better, the two back cylinders are coming closer together in the readings, while the front cylinders are still all over the place.

to me the car idles fine, it has a bit of a grumble to it that to me sounds like the torque cams, GD thinks it's still got a miss, but for me, I can't really tell for sure because I have no other EA82 with torque cams to compare it to

It seems to have plenty of power on the road, it's got what I would describe as good get up and go.

But those compression numbers make me think it should be running worse than it is.

The amount of oil it's burning also tells me there's a ring problem, a leak down test verifies that as well, because you can hear the air pressure coming out the oil filler tube.

so, according to seafoam, they say to do a good cleaning from the back side of the pistons, they claim that you should put 1 ounce of seafoam for every quart of oil in the crank case, and drive the car 30 to 50 mils and change the oil.

I tried that and it seemed to have an effect, so I'm going to try it again, this time, I'm going to try 2 ounces of seafoam for every quart of oil.

I'm thinking if we go at the rings from the back as well as the front, it's bound to have some effect.

Edited by Stubies Subie, 08 November 2011 - 12:41 AM.

[Stubies Subie]

Here’s another idea I just found doing an internet search:

"...The standard cure (for oil consumption) is to pour a couple oz.'s of SeaFoam in each cylinder, let it sit overnight or longer with plugs out; crank with plugs out to eliminate any SeaFoam in the cylinders (i.e., prevent hydraulic lockup), then start up. It will likely smoke like it’s on fire for 5 minutes, then stop. On my Saturn, doing this and adding a can of SeaFoam to the oil for 100 miles before a scheduled oil change reduced oil consumption from ~500 mi/qt to over 1,000 mi/qt. A second treatment completely reduced consumption to a point I didn't need to top off between 3,000 mile changes"

now what I'm thinking, (because what I got is a flat 4) if I can get one side of the car on a 45 degree slope then fill up the "high side" cylinders over night, that might work.

I'm also reading more and more then prolonged use of seafoam in the crank case is a bad idea, yet here’s someone that drive 100 miles then changed his oil.

The last time I added it to the crankcase; I drove 50 miles then changed the oil.

[TomRhere]

When you do that 45* angle thing with the car, set your engine to the T-belt timing marks also.
That will put the pistons at the center of the stroke, giving you more area for the liquid.

[Stubies Subie]

When you do that 45* angle thing with the car, set your engine to the T-belt timing marks also.
That will put the pistons at the center of the stroke, giving you more area for the liquid.

good idea, thanks, I'm going to wait until Friday night before I do the cylinders so I can let it sit all weekend, I'm only going to be able to do 2 cylinders at a time, so it's going to be a slow process, and the weekend is about the only time I can let the car sit unused.

part of my driveway drops off into a field, and I'm thinking with a combination of the field, driveway, and a set of car ramps, I can get a pretty good angle, I'll have to post a picture, it's going to look kind of strange, but if it gets a couple of cylinders somewhat vertical, that should give me a good chance to really soak a couple of pistons.

I’ll do a before and after compression reading.

on another note, I racked up some miles on the car this past weekend, I had an old truck driving friend come to town, and we used the car to do some running around town while he was here.

I am liking the car more and more, it's solid, and handles well, the cooling system filters seems to work well, after the 4th cleaning, they are staying relatively clean, and the heater blows so hot it will literally drive you out of the car when cranked on high. The stereo sux, but I'll take care of that problem in time.

Here’s a picture I took this weekend of ol' KC (name of the car), next to my buddy's freightliner:

Edited by Stubies Subie, 08 November 2011 - 07:44 AM.

[GeneralDisorder]

I agree with letting it sit all weekend. So far we have had the best luck with the first cylinder I treated which sat overnight with a 50/50 mix of ATF and Acetone. That cylinder (#3 pass. rear) came up 40 psi and has stayed there. Both of the further treatments I have done to the 90 lb cylinder (#1 pass. front) were only able to sit for about 3 to 4 hours before I had to put the car back in running order. That doesn't seem to have been enough to really accomplish anything.

I think patience is the key. And possibly the application of some air pressure to the cylinder. About 10 to 20 psi behind the solvent mix and just let it sit over night like that. Should yeild some results I think based on what I have seen so far.

Overall the engine has smoothed out a lot since we first started it but the oil consumption is not acceptable.

GD

[Loyale 2.7 Turbo]

I Fixed a similar problem in a Friend's Mitsubish¡t Eclipse, by Pouring Marvel Mistery Oil inside the Cylinders and letting there for a Whole weekend, Plus Pouring it to the Gasoline also to the engine's Oil and We Used a Thin Engine Oil, 10W~30...

After Crankin' the engine without Sparkplugs, then it was very Hard to Start but when Started it Blowed a Huge Cloud of Smoke; the car owner raced it for a While on the Highway and Suddenly, the Sticky rings Problem went away in the next days.

I hope this idea might Help.
Kind Regards.

[Stubies Subie]

I think patience is the key. And possibly the application of some air pressure to the cylinder. About 10 to 20 psi behind the solvent mix ....
GD

I've been running the air pressure idea through my head, I got the perfect compressor for it, (my little airbrush compressor) I'm just not sure how to make the adaptor that screws into the spark plug hole and connects to the compressor.

[bigjimd]

Maybe take the hose off your old compression gauge? I thought I read earlier that you had gotten a new one. Some fittings from the hardware store and you should be in business.

[Stubies Subie]

Maybe take the hose off your old compression gauge? I thought I read earlier that you had gotten a new one. Some fittings from the hardware store and you should be in business.

I can use the hose off the old compression tester, I just need to figure out the fittings to the compressor, I'll look at it when I get home tonight but I'm thinking that I might be able to change the end fitting that snaps into the guage, and change that out to the the type my compressor takes

[bluto5]

Blow gun with a tapered rubber end would do the trick without to much messin around also.

Good luck fighting the good fight.

Sam

[GeneralDisorder]

Just cut the hose and get an air-hose repair kit that has a 3/8" (or 1/4") hose barb to 1/4" NPT and a hose clamp - they have them at Harbor Frieght in the air fittings section.

GD

[Stubies Subie]

I got the passenger side cylinders soaking in seafoam, I’ll leave it this way until Friday.

Here’s how I did it:

I found the steepest part of my back yard, and with a little bit of help from some car ramps, I got the car at about a 35 degree angle:


I did as TomRhere suggested and lined up the timing belt timing marks.

My next problem was trying to figure out how I was going to get the seafoam into the cylinders.

I have plenty of funnels, but nothing small enough to fit down in the spark plug hole.
Than I was looking over in my RC airplane and car stuff and found an RC gas car funnel that screws to a plastic pop bottle top, it fit perfect:

So if you ever need a micro funnel of sorts, go visit your local hobby shop.

I filled the front cylinder until the seafoam came out the spark plug hole, the front cylinder is the bad one, so I know the whole piston is covered. I put a whole can of seafoam in the back cylinder and it never did fill up, but I’m guessing it went out through an open valve. But I had to have at the least, covered half the piston.

I then inserted the spark plugs back in the holes to keep the debris out and will check and top off the cylinders over the next couple of days as needed.

Edited by Stubies Subie, 09 November 2011 - 02:38 PM.

[Stubies Subie]

I wanted to make a separate post for this one, this little incident has me somewhat baffled and don’t know if it has anything to do with my compression problem or not.

Here’s what happened:

As I was backing the car up on the angled incline in the back yard, and it was beginning to get a good tilt towards the drivers side, it began to smoke oil REALLY bad, I realize it’s dumping fluid to one side of the engine bt didn’t think I had it tilted bad enough that it would severely smoke like that, it started doing it as I was backing it up on the car ramps and I shut of off immediately and called that angle “good enough”

Why was it all of a sudden start smoking so badly? It seems like it shouldn’t have done that.

the car is at a steeper angle then the picture implies.

[GeneralDisorder]

You dumped a bunch of oil into the driver's side valve cover and it's sucking it straight into the intake via the PCV valve. It's partially because of the "long, sweeping right hand turn" PCV fix that your car probably doesn't have being a '91 and partially because it was never intended to operate at the extreem angle you have it at. For off-road purposes you would need a catch-can, etc to prevent that.

The PCV hose re-route kit is availible from the dealer for cheap - it just modifies some of the hoses and fittings on the intake snorkus to dampen the amount of suction the PCV valve puts on the driver's side valve cover.

GD

[Stubies Subie]

You dumped a bunch of oil into the driver's side valve cover and it's sucking it straight into the intake via the PCV valve. It's partially because of the "long, sweeping right hand turn" PCV fix that your car probably doesn't have being a '91 and partially because it was never intended to operate at the extreem angle you have it at. For off-road purposes you would need a catch-can, etc to prevent that.

The PCV hose re-route kit is availible from the dealer for cheap - it just modifies some of the hoses and fittings on the intake snorkus to dampen the amount of suction the PCV valve puts on the driver's side valve cover.

GD

that's a good explanation, that works for me, I don't intend to get it at an angle like this again other then for soaking the cylinders.

Oh yeah, I'm not real sure yet, but it looks like your last cylinder treatment might have helped to because it looks like the oil consumption might have gone down a little bit.

Normally for every two trips back and forth to work I have to ad a quart of oil, but after these last two trips, it’s down maybe ½ quart. So I’m hoping the oil burning is starting to diminish.

Edited by Stubies Subie, 09 November 2011 - 03:00 PM.

[Stubies Subie]

soak, soak, twiddling thumbs, soak, soak, soak, I wonder if it would go any faster if I quit standing there watching it

[Stubies Subie]

I checked the cylinders that I've been letting soak for the last 24 hours and they were low on seafoam, between the two cylinders (both on the passenger side) I added a full can of seafoam. The front cylinder was about a half a can low before it came up through the spark plug hole, the back cylinder I can't tell because a valve is open.

The soaking continues, I was thinking of letting it soak until tomorrow, but I can just as easily let it go until Saturday.

It’s such a slow process ….

I know for sure I'm getting a really good soaking on the front cylinder, so if this works, and I get a considerable compression rise out of that front cylinder, I'll do the rest of them, one cylinder at a time with valves closed until the liquid comes out the spark plug hole so I know I'm getting a good soaking.

[Loyale 2.7 Turbo]

Sounds Good and Enough to Free the Sticky Rings, but have you Consider to Run the Subie with some amount of Marvel Mistery Oil mixed with the Gasoline? ... That will Help to Free them too.

Kind Regards.

[92_rugby_subie]

Well Stuart

I wish I could give you amazing compression numbers for Ned... but I dont think so...

BEST numbers I got (first few times I got lower because I didnt crank long, sound of the motor made me lose track in my counting, had to reset)

1 -145
2 -125
3 -155
4 -100

The 2/4 is probably because of the HG leak :/

Its weird though because Ned runs like a top, tons of spunk and he drives really nicely.

[Stubies Subie]

Jeszek - I got a quart of marvel mystery oil I was going to dump in the crank case when the soakings done, I also picked up 4 more bottles of seafoam, good things it's on sale right now at $6.99 a can.

My plan is to go for a long drive on Sunday, pour a bottle or seafoam in the gas tank, and put the quart of Marvel Mystery oil in the crank case, drive a couple hundred miles and come home and change the oil.

Rugby-subie, your numbers sound about like mine, it's interesting to note that yours runs fine even with those numbers, while mine has a grumble/miss to it (with about the same compression readings), which leads me to believe that grumble/miss isn't from the out of whack compression problem I have but from the torque cams which should mean that my grumble/miss should be perfectly normal given it's got torque cams.

It would be nice to find someone else with an EA82 with torque cams so we could compare notes, but most people won’t go to the trouble when they can swap over to an EJ22

Edited by Stubies Subie, 10 November 2011 - 05:53 PM.

[GeneralDisorder]

I highly doubt that NED has a compression leak in addition to the oil leak from the HG - those are probably just the numbers from the rings.

It's likely a combination of things - first the torque cams are going to contribute to some roughness at idle - that's certainly true. Second - NED has a carb that can be tuned to mask much of the roughness caused by a lean miss - the SPFI system can't compensate for that - you can't raise the idle speed and you can't adjust the mixture and richen it up to rid yourself of the "lean stumbles".

My (little) hatch has 3 cylinders at about 150 and one at 110. The Weber's tune masks it completely.

One of the problems with a (stock) fuel injection system is that it has no tuneability - even when you want a little bit. If you went to MegaSquirt you could most likely tune out a large amount of the rough idle on both Stuart's EA82 here as well as Jacob's frankenbrat with the stock '92 ECU.

GD

Edited by GeneralDisorder, 10 November 2011 - 06:59 PM.

[Stubies Subie]

If you went to MegaSquirt you could most likely tune out a large amount of the rough idle on both Stuart's EA82 here as well as Jacob's frankenbrat with the stock '92 ECU.

GD

I looked up the megaSquirt, it don't look like it's all that expensive, that might be an option for mine when we get into the fine tuning of it.

I just watched a video of a guy with an Opel with a built 2.2 with a reground cam and before tuning and it pretty much sounded like mine at idle. at least it sounded like it has the same idle grumble/miss I got

here's a link to the video:

[Stubies Subie]

I decided to finish up the cylinder soaking today, after I sucked the seafoam out of the cylinders, I cranked in over a few times to make sure the seafoam was all out of there, I put the spark plugs back in and fired it up, the thing smoked like H_ll for a few minutes, then I took it out for a drive and it smoked some more.



One nice benefit to using seafoam with all that smoking, it allows you to find any exhaust leaks you might have, I found this one:


It seems to be running a little better, but time will tell, I still have some marvel mystery oil to put in the crankcase, and a full bottle of seafaom to put in the gas tank.

I’ll run it this weekend, see how it does, take another compression reading when I get home, and cross my fingers in hopes that the compression came up on the passenger side.

And then I’ll do the same thing to the drivers side

[Stubies Subie]

I just did a 30 miles drive to work, it's running 100% better (so far), so smooth that you almost can't tell it's still running when you pull up to a traffic light, , it still has a ever so slightly grumble rumble idle, but it's a whole lot smoother then it was.

that was was the good news ....

the bad news is, it burned up a half quart of oil in 30 miles, that brought it down to exactly 1 quart low, so when I got to work, I added the quart of Marvel Mystery oil.

I still think it's to soon to tell if the soaking helped or not, and I'm going to have to wait to see what the marvel mystery oil does.

that's the latest, I'll keep Y'all posted