Car Related: Took me three months, but...

[C(-)ris]

My wife's car ('05 Malibu with 140k) decided to stop running while I was driving it, of course. Was barely able to drive make it home and get it into the garage and then it wouldn't start up again. Didn't notice any strange noises, just a complete loss of power and surging/misfires. Pulled codes and only had a multiple cylinder miss fire.

Ran through the usual suspects, checked oil and coolant, checked battery voltage and alternator output, pulled and replaced spark plugs, tested coil pack module, ohmed out the plug wires, tested MAF sensor, verified fuel pressure, checked injectors for flow, verified O2 sensors working and came up with nothing. Everything tested good, no problems found. So we have good air, fuel, and spark. This took a few weeks of casual working in the evening or when I had some free time. On to compression next.

Was going along great, 180, 182, 181, 181, and boom zero, followed by another 185. Ran them all again, and then did #5 about 4 more times just to make sure that the zero really wasn't a fluke. Absolutely no compression in that cylinder. Borrowed an inspection camera and was able to get a halfway decent look inside the cylinder and didn't see any gigantic holes or any missing bits floating around.

Unfortunately #5 is on the back side of the engine against the firewall. Had to remove pretty much everything off the top and front of the engine to get the valve cover off the back side and was greeted to this:

[spoiler=Spoiler]

[/spoiler]

Wonderful. Pondered for a bit about how much effort I wanted to put into a 2005 vehicle...then I looked at used car prices and decided I was better off attempting to fix this. Best case, $20 for a new spring. Worst case there were a bunch of pulled engines at salvage yards with under 100k miles for around $300 within driving distance. Either way, considerably cheaper than trying to buy a used car right now.

Decided to take a gamble and see if I could replace just the spring with the head still on the car and hope that there wasn't any damage to the valve or the cylinder. Dealer only part, no aftermarket springs available. Nothing in stock locally. Ordered from one GMPartsdirect. 2 weeks later they canceled the order and said they couldn't find the part. Ordered one off ebay, 2 weeks later they couldn't find it either. Tried 2 other parts places, same story. Went around for a month trying to get a new spring with no luck.

Ended up going to a salvage yard about 3 hours away that lets you pull your own parts and pulled a valve spring and rocker arm off an identical model. Was $15 for the parts and a half an hour freezing my ass off in the cold and snow. I really need to get some heated gloves and jacket.

Had a bunch going on for the next couple weeks and finally had time this past weekend to get working on it. Managed to get the old spring out and new spring in without dropping the valve or losing the retainers. Pro tip: Assembly lube on the end of a screwdriver keeps the tiny retainers in place while you uncompress the spring and seat the valve. That was the part I was most worried about. Forgot to order a new valve cover gasket so I had to wait a few days for that to come in but was able to button up the valve cover on Monday. Ran a compression test and got 185, super excited and promising. Put the rest of the accessories and brackets back on and took a deep breath and turned the key.

https://youtu.be/QA1Zpg-uYc0

Started right up like a champ. No noise, no CEL, everything looked good. Let it run for about 15 minutes to warm up and get into closed loop and then retired for the night. Gave it a nice test drive the next day and then my wife took it out tonight with no issues.

Hoping for the best long term, but really wondering how exactly one valve spring cracked in half for no apparent reason. Not bad though, $15 for what would have likely been a several thousand dollar repair at a shop.

[GGD]

C(-)ris wrote:
Ended up going to a salvage yard about 3 hours away that lets you pull your own parts and pulled a valve spring and rocker arm off an identical model. Was $15 for the parts and a half an hour freezing my ass off in the cold and snow. I really need to get some heated gloves and jacket.

And an additional benefit of those types of yards is you can practice the disassembly reassembly process.

Good job, glad you got it repaired.

[mattkime]

congrats - well earned!

[Tiangou]

Getting ready to read about the miraculous home-spun re-bore job... miley-excited001:

And then it's a spring. :eek2:

Way beyond my skills. Awesome, man.

[Carnos Jax]

Yup, very impressive (especially for a computer nerd), way to go man!

[RAMd®d]

Ordered from one GMPartsdirect. 2 weeks later they canceled the order and said they couldn't find the part. Ordered one off ebay, 2 weeks later they couldn't find it either.


This really ticks me off.

I was looking for some bits for my bike that Honda had just discontinued.

A bunch of Honda parts retailers showed it still available, as did several ebay semi-retailers, the kind that have odd mixes of parts for different bikes, but not a lot for any one bike.

All had this kit as available — 'In Stock'.

But it wasn't.

Pay my money and wait... wait... wait...

Then get a notification they've been discontinued, so sorry (or not) and a refunded eventually issued.

The parts were never in stock, the various retailers just stated that, and would then order from Honda, which had already discontinued the pieces.

Six months later, others were looking for the same kit, saying they found it at ABC or XYZ sites.

'No, you didn't...

And no, they didn't.

[Racer X]

I've broken inner springs in a dual spring set-up. But its a high compression, high output engine. Turns out the machinist machined the valve spring pockets wrong.

Anyway, I bet if you look at the broken ends with high magnification, I bet you find a flaw in the spring. I have 20x,40x and 60x loupes that are LED lighted, and UV LEDs as well.

[Michael]

I'm very impressed.

Yesterday the foot-opener-thing for the trunk of our CRV stopped working. The extent of my skills was to turn it off and then back on on the screen in the cabin. That didn't work, so off to Honda for a (fortunately) warranty repair. If it wasn't under warranty I'd just let it sit. Figuring out and repairing an engine is just not going to happen for me.

[rgG]

I had a company car that broke a valve spring.
Funny thing, it was an almost new car, so obviously it was a flaw in the spring, but it was still the weirdest engine failure I have ever had.

[wurm]

Jeebus, I'm exhausted just reading about this. Kudos to you for your patience, diligence, and knowledge. I'm all for DIY to save some bucks, but that's impressive.