hey all my 84 sedan 4x4 is still knocking at a cold idle, its a intermitant knock acompied by a squeel, (sounds like belts but isnt) it also causes the tach to jump and car to misfire and die sometimes, when the car warms up its driveable and the symptoms dissappear, however when its cold the knocking causes extream powerloss and the car is not driveable, someone suguested to repalce the disty, but i need more oppinions before make a purchase like that. Thanks

it could be piston slap, or a wrist pin, although an ovaled or collapsed piston skirt would cause it to slap when cold, might be just bad enough to make it not get quite enough compression on a cylinder or two, not sure just a guess. Do a compression check on it with it cold, and do another when it's hot, see what you come up with.

The squeals and power loss and other I don't know nothing, but here what I was always told about knocks.

 

If it's a knock that occurs on start up, engine cold, and it goes away when the engine warms up, piston slap or worn wrist pin.

 

Knock that begins a car warms up, gets louder untill operating temp, main or ros bearing.

 

We are talking knock, right? Not tick, or tap, or rattle, or clatter. Knock.

 

Pyro

Yeah its a knock, but there's no rythim to it, its totaly random, even through the rpms, but it occurs less around 2500rpm and up