Back in April of 2013, a few miles from Hanksville but already on dirt, I heard a slight tapping from my D1's engine.
Everyone I asked about it laughed me off, saying there just wasn't anything that is called "tapping" in Land Rover world.
Five hours later, in Fishlake Nat'l Forest, the tapping was loud enough for everyone to be concerned. It sounded almost exactly like an early rod knock, so I spent a miserable cold night thinking - what would I do if it ends up rod knock? Our campsite was about 65 miles from the nearest service station.
The morning start-up had this knock loud and clear. I asked the gang for some gear oil - a quart added to the crankcase could boost the oil pressure just enough for me to get out. Nobody had it, but Jason Rose had a bottle of Lucas engine oil goo; I dumped it into the engine, and discovered that the knock was still there, completely unaffected.
So, it ended up... a failed bearing on the power steering pump, far lesser offender yet equally debilitating. I had a 384-mile flat tow from Salina to St. George, Utah, and a next-morning successful search for a used pump which lasted me exactly till San Diego, and died right there.
With this in mind, I thought we could use a thread or even a section devoted to field fixes. Not full repairs, but fixes allowing one to get home or at least to a properly equipped shop.
Here's what I dreamed up that 6-degree night at 9000 feet.
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Rod knock.
Severity: very high; a loose bottom rod bearing will eventually destroy the bearing shells, the crank journal, and cause overall loss of oil pressure and potential catastrophic engine failure.
Diagnostics: difficult to tell bottom-end knock from wrist pin knock, and difficult to tell from many other noises. The only one that's easy to check is the broken substrate in the catalytic converter, which can be confirmed or disproved by a hard whack by a heavy mallet (or one's foot).
One way to diagnose it is to disconnect spark plug wires, one by one; a missing spark in the affected cylinder should make the tapping less pronounced.
Ultimately, you need to drain oil, dump the pan, remove the spark plugs, and shake every rod vigorously - front to rear and up and down. Any noticeable up/down play is grounds to removal of the rod cap.
Field fix: if a loose rod bearing is found, the way to extend its remaining short life is to alleviate mechanical load on it.
At a minimum: disconnect and short to the ground the spark plug wire.
Better: disconnect and short to the ground the spark plug wire, and remove the spark plug. The downside is unburnt mixture dumped both to the exhaust manifold and outside through the spark plug hole - exhaust venting back through the spark plug hole may ignite the mixture.
Better yet: disconnect and short to the ground the spark plug wire, remove the spark plug, and disconnect the fuel injector from harness. It works differently for 14CUX and GEMS/Bosch - the last two pulse individual injectors, while 14CUX flashes them in fours, side to side.
Better yet: all of the above, + pull the valve cover, take off the rocker arms shaft, and remove two pushrods that control the valves in the affected cylinder. I don't know what'll happen to the tappets left floating - they will likely bounce up and will occasionally slide down and be smacked by the camshaft.
Best: all of the above, + pull the oil pan, remove the rod cap on the affected cylinder, and pad the bearing shells. This is a really old-time fix and it doesn't last a very long time, but it allows to close the gap on the affected cylinder and keep up the oil pressure.
You'll need some aluminum foil - candy wrappers work, and a file. It helps to know the thickness of the foil, but you could guess - and file a few thousandths of an inch off the ends of the (beat up) bearing half-shells. Cut the foil rectangles that would cover the most of the outside surface of the shell, place them into the rod/rod cap bed, place shaved shells on top of them, and torque down the rod cap bolts.
Upping the engine oil viscosity will help regardless of the measures above - we rarely carry straight 50-weight oil, so half a quart of gear oil is a good start.
Keep in mind that non-serpentine-belt engines are less tolerant of very viscous oil - the pump is driven by a distributor shaft.
Please chime in, I'll gladly edit or delete it if you think it is completely bonkers.
Everyone I asked about it laughed me off, saying there just wasn't anything that is called "tapping" in Land Rover world.
Five hours later, in Fishlake Nat'l Forest, the tapping was loud enough for everyone to be concerned. It sounded almost exactly like an early rod knock, so I spent a miserable cold night thinking - what would I do if it ends up rod knock? Our campsite was about 65 miles from the nearest service station.
The morning start-up had this knock loud and clear. I asked the gang for some gear oil - a quart added to the crankcase could boost the oil pressure just enough for me to get out. Nobody had it, but Jason Rose had a bottle of Lucas engine oil goo; I dumped it into the engine, and discovered that the knock was still there, completely unaffected.
So, it ended up... a failed bearing on the power steering pump, far lesser offender yet equally debilitating. I had a 384-mile flat tow from Salina to St. George, Utah, and a next-morning successful search for a used pump which lasted me exactly till San Diego, and died right there.
With this in mind, I thought we could use a thread or even a section devoted to field fixes. Not full repairs, but fixes allowing one to get home or at least to a properly equipped shop.
Here's what I dreamed up that 6-degree night at 9000 feet.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rod knock.
Severity: very high; a loose bottom rod bearing will eventually destroy the bearing shells, the crank journal, and cause overall loss of oil pressure and potential catastrophic engine failure.
Diagnostics: difficult to tell bottom-end knock from wrist pin knock, and difficult to tell from many other noises. The only one that's easy to check is the broken substrate in the catalytic converter, which can be confirmed or disproved by a hard whack by a heavy mallet (or one's foot).
One way to diagnose it is to disconnect spark plug wires, one by one; a missing spark in the affected cylinder should make the tapping less pronounced.
Ultimately, you need to drain oil, dump the pan, remove the spark plugs, and shake every rod vigorously - front to rear and up and down. Any noticeable up/down play is grounds to removal of the rod cap.
Field fix: if a loose rod bearing is found, the way to extend its remaining short life is to alleviate mechanical load on it.
At a minimum: disconnect and short to the ground the spark plug wire.
Better: disconnect and short to the ground the spark plug wire, and remove the spark plug. The downside is unburnt mixture dumped both to the exhaust manifold and outside through the spark plug hole - exhaust venting back through the spark plug hole may ignite the mixture.
Better yet: disconnect and short to the ground the spark plug wire, remove the spark plug, and disconnect the fuel injector from harness. It works differently for 14CUX and GEMS/Bosch - the last two pulse individual injectors, while 14CUX flashes them in fours, side to side.
Better yet: all of the above, + pull the valve cover, take off the rocker arms shaft, and remove two pushrods that control the valves in the affected cylinder. I don't know what'll happen to the tappets left floating - they will likely bounce up and will occasionally slide down and be smacked by the camshaft.
Best: all of the above, + pull the oil pan, remove the rod cap on the affected cylinder, and pad the bearing shells. This is a really old-time fix and it doesn't last a very long time, but it allows to close the gap on the affected cylinder and keep up the oil pressure.
You'll need some aluminum foil - candy wrappers work, and a file. It helps to know the thickness of the foil, but you could guess - and file a few thousandths of an inch off the ends of the (beat up) bearing half-shells. Cut the foil rectangles that would cover the most of the outside surface of the shell, place them into the rod/rod cap bed, place shaved shells on top of them, and torque down the rod cap bolts.
Upping the engine oil viscosity will help regardless of the measures above - we rarely carry straight 50-weight oil, so half a quart of gear oil is a good start.
Keep in mind that non-serpentine-belt engines are less tolerant of very viscous oil - the pump is driven by a distributor shaft.
Please chime in, I'll gladly edit or delete it if you think it is completely bonkers.
