aussie4wheeler Posted October 14, 2015 Share Posted October 14, 2015 All hands on deck! I apologize for the late post and urgent content but I am in desperate need of help. I was at the shooting range training with my girlfriend when i went to drop her at the bowling alley for a girls night out. A 1/4 mile from the alley the pathfinder began making a ticking and then a horrible knocking sound that matched the idle speed and got louder with higher revs. I admit that I was driving hard when it happened, some fskcwit cut me off and then yelled something out his window. My juvenile 21 year old brain decided it was a thoroughly good idea to put pedal to metal, pass said Ford driving fskcwit and raise the international symbol for 'eat me' out of my pathys moonroof. I have never had an issue with this pathy until A half mile later after the rough acceleration, The noise began. I pulled into the bowling alley and called a tow truck. Had it towed to me house where i have a modest heated garage with a small but quality selection of hand tools. I have read many horror stories regarding some kind of power valve screw that comes loose in this motor and gets jammed in a valve or lifter or cylinder etc and causes enough damage that a new motor is required..... I hope this is not the case as i just swapped a motor in my landrover and sold the damn thing after a year of headaches and lost thousands on the whole deal. I didn't go in and loctite the screws yet because I was planning on a full motor rebuild with a DNJ rebuild kit this winter including new pistons, rings, pumps, gaskets etc. I don't yet have the money for the kit but I am in the process of pulling the intake manifold tonight to have a look around. I live in northern Wisconsin where snow is an ever present threat, I am riding my motorcycle until I can fix the pathy or until I ship off to army basic combat training. The 02 pathy has 184,000 miles on it. Please offer any advice, I greatly appreciate your attention and assistance. JR, (The American Born Australian, aspiring Army Aviator). Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5523Pathfinder Posted October 14, 2015 Share Posted October 14, 2015 (edited) Holy Moses! I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say your using Tapatalk. If you are, dump it. It lies to you!!! Anyway, have you checked the oil? These motors are known to burn some oil. That's where I'd start. Edited October 14, 2015 by 5523Pathfinder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fixinto Posted October 14, 2015 Share Posted October 14, 2015 (edited) I am not sure of the year range of the power valve screw problem. IF that is what happened ....ouch. Does the noise sound like it is in the valve train or the block? is it a deep booming ping or more of ticking? Did you make sure your oil was at a good level? Does the noise ever stop for a brief period of time and then continue? Did you double check everything and make sure something isnt into your pulley system or rubbing on the belt? "probably wishful thinking there" I have a 96 so i am not overly familiar with this problem, from what i have read sometimes the screw will work itself free and pass through the head without touching a thing, sometimes it is completely catastrophic. If you are sure it is inside the engine. I would at least go down far enough to investigate the screws themselves and see if any came out. if so....the only thing left to do is to assess the damage and figure out if you need a new or "new used motor" or if you just need head work or whatever. If it didn't scare up your cylinder walls, you may be able to scope it and remove it through the spark plug hole without removing the head.. if not. You have a lot of work ahead of you sir. Just try to think logically, and scope out the situation the best you can before determining your course of action is all ic an tell you at this point. GL with your Pathfinder Pat Edited October 14, 2015 by fixinto Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedPath88 Posted October 14, 2015 Share Posted October 14, 2015 Ok I deleted 7 identical threads, moved one from the General Section and one from the 96+ section to the Garage, then merged them both since responses had been split between them.Please STOP making a bunch of identical topics! Nine of them in the span of 70min is extremely unnecessary and that is aside from the fact that when you create more than one topic on the same subject matter it just splits responses from other members across them all (which happened almost immediately here.) Online forums create a feeding effect where members can build off of one another's replies in order to better and more quickly help the original poster. This is negated when said responses are split between multiple topics. It also clutters the forum and frustrates members because they tire of seeing the same thing spammed all over the forum. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aussie4wheeler Posted October 14, 2015 Author Share Posted October 14, 2015 Ok I deleted 7 identical threads, moved one from the General Section and one from the 96+ section to the Garage, then merged them both since responses had been split between them. Please STOP making a bunch of identical topics! Nine of them in the span of 70min is extremely unnecessary and that is aside from the fact that when you create more than one topic on the same subject matter it just splits responses from other members across them all (which happened almost immediately here.) Online forums create a feeding effect where members can build off of one another's replies in order to better and more quickly help the original poster. This is negated when said responses are split between multiple topics. It also clutters the forum and frustrates members because they tire of seeing the same thing spammed all over the forum. I apologize brother, for come reason the Tapatalk app kept telling me that I didn't have the authority to post a new topic when I attempted to post it. I hit post several times to try and get it to work before I gave up and went to work on the pathy. An hour later I went back to the app and realised that I had posted several time afterall and i attempted to delete them but was unable to. I apologize again guys.Josh Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aussie4wheeler Posted October 14, 2015 Author Share Posted October 14, 2015 Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aussie4wheeler Posted October 14, 2015 Author Share Posted October 14, 2015 Above you will see a picture of what I believe is the power valve? 2 of the 12 screws are missing and lost somewhere in the Engine.... Looks like a rebuild afterall. I guess I will attempt the spark plug extraction idea, thanks Pat. JR Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motofish Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 Wow, sorry to hear and see that... I'd definitely try the "fishing through the sparkplug hole" idea first. Maybe a simple magnet with a flexible shaft would find them? They look pretty small. At this point since you had it towed pretty quickly afterward maybe there isnt much damage to the cylinders? Since you know which ones are missing you should know which cylinders to search in right? Say a prayer and hope for the best! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fixinto Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 Did you have any luck with using a grabber, or extraction tool to get at them? If they are brass i am not entirely sure they are magnetic. would be sweet if they were though. =) probably bounced off the top of your pistons and beat the crap out of the valves, maybe cylinder walls ect... hopefully you can get them out of there. they will probably look like a little brass ball from being bounced around in that heat. If you do find them, and you think the damage is minimal, don't forget to loc-tite all the rest of them, and the replacements. be a shame to have to do this again in a couple of months / years. GL with her, please keep us updated. and thank you for the pic Pat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slartibartfast Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 The magnet won't help much with brass, but I'll bet it would find something else to stick to in there and be even more difficult to remove. Maybe try a piece of thin rubber tubing hooked to a vacuum cleaner? If you put pantyhose or something between the hose and the vacuum, you can check afterwards to see if it actually caught anything. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terranovation Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 Maybe you could get lucky by draining the oil and with a bit of flushing out with kerosene the screws will come out the drain. I don't know but it's worth trying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aussie4wheeler Posted November 5, 2015 Author Share Posted November 5, 2015 Thanks for the input guys, I decided to go with the legit fix, if I'm gonna do something I prefer to do it 100%. Unfortunately its not cheap, refer to list of parts I wrote in the 'what did you do to your pathy' writeup. Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aussie4wheeler Posted November 5, 2015 Author Share Posted November 5, 2015 Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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