Ignition or carb?

[Pawel Saladziak]

Ok, so this is what happened few days ago.
I was on my way back from airport, driving as usual, not too fast, had the star gear on to get more speed quick, then turned on to overdrive gear, and then I felt power loss, and heard nocking sound from engine compartment.
Long story short is that cylinders 3 and 4 are not firing up. I changed all spark plugs, new ones at 3 and 4 are again wet and a bit oily. Cables are fine (I swapped cables on both ends to check it), distributor cap is fine, nothing looks particularly damaged all pins have the same wear, rotor arm fine. When HT cable cap end removed, I can see spark jumping.
Oil temperature goes high pretty quick, after 5-7 miles depending on driving speed, it reaches the maximum.
Oil level is correct however I do not know how to check if viscosity is correct.
So now after reading Haynes manual, I am leaning toward the faulty carb, rather than HT circuit.
What are you thoughts?

[Bitumen Boy]

Hi Pawel,

If I understand your post correctly I wouldn't suspect the ignition or the carbs, but would suggest you check the engine cam timing in the first instance.

If I am right in thinking that your car has the Triomatic gearbox, and that you suffered a loss of power on making the 2-3 upshift while accelerating, it sounds very much like a problem we've had in the past. We had a Triomatic Acclaim for a good few years, but on three separate occasions the cam timing slipped under exactly these circumstances. We never did find out why, the cambelt was always changed at the recommended intervals and there was no other visible fault, but on every occasion retiming the engine with a new cambelt cured the problem.  Ours always slipped far enough to stop the engine running at all, but if yours has only slipped slightly out that can give all manner of odd symptoms. It's worth noting that we never had this problem with any of the manual Acclaims we had.

Overheating is something I always found that Acclaims are prone to anyway - even with everything spot on - and isn't necessarily related, though it would be worth having the waterpump off while checking the timing and making sure that the bearing hasn't failed and that the impellor hasn't come adrift. I've seen a few pumps with impellors that were just rough castings (better ones are machined) which I suspect don't help the cooling system perform well. Incidentally, the temp gauge on the dash is for water temperature, unless yours has had an aftermarket oil temp gauge fitted.

Another possibility is headgasket failure, and I would suggest a compression test should be carried out as a precaution even if another more obvious fault is found. In my experience though Acclaim headgaskets don't let go suddenly; rather they fail slowly due to corrosion as people keep topping up leaky radiators with plain water rather than getting the rad sorted and using a proper 50% mix of blue antifreeze.

There's no practical way for the home mechanic to check the oil viscosity, however if you don't know what's in there it's probably overdue for an oil and filter change anyway. Originally the recommended grade was 15W/50, but I suspect you'll struggle to find that now. 15W/40 was an alternative listed in the factory manual which you should be able to get hold of without too much trouble.

As I say, I don't think this is an ignition or carb related fault - the fact that you have sparks and that it sounds like the engine will run after a fashion means that neither has gone dramatically wrong. Ignition and carbs on these cars are normally pretty reliable and I would leave well alone until you've investigated everything else first.

[Barry Acclaim Guru]

just a quick one, check the carb solenoid wires are connected well, i have had dirty connections play merry hell in the past

[Pawel Saladziak]

So you think this may be the solenoid, even though all the plugs are giving the spark?

I did not have time to fit the belt myself, so I gave it to friendly mechanic. He is telling me that he measured pressure on cylinders, so 1st and 2nd are between 11 and 12, and there is no pressure on 3rd and 4th.
He suspects that either valves are bent/broken or piston head is cracked. I am not that specialist to judge his opinion, so maybe you can share yours?

[Bitumen Boy]

Never seen or heard of serious valve trouble on these engines and the cylinder head castings also seem to be good quality. Given that compression test result it sounds most likely to be headgasket related, but in any case your only realistic next step is to remove the cylinder head to see just what's going on in there. Unfortunately I don't know what spares availability is like for these engines for the simple reason that we never needed any that couldn't be had used, if the trouble is serious it could be time to look for a better used engine although if the trouble does turn out to be valve related a cylinder head specialist will likely be able to assist - but, of course, for a price. Let us know how you get on!

[Pawel Saladziak]

Lets say the head gasket is gone, wouldn't that result in water being present in oil?
Oil looks pretty bad and dirty but there is no water there. However water temperature is getting maximum readout in 15 minutes or so from starting the cold motor. This was never the issue, it just happened after the mentioned failure.
As for the parts, both walves and valve guides are accessible now.
Is there any way to check if the gasket is fine, other than taking the head off?

[Pawel Saladziak]

Preparing for the worst, I started to haunt replacement parts, and here comes the question. Is the 1981 Honda Civic 1.3 L4 engine, the one that will share parts with acclaims engine?

[Bitumen Boy]

Headgasket failure often does result in water mixing with oil, but not every time. No compression on two adjacent cylinders, however, is very suspicious.

You could have some very weird problem with the valve gear, so I would suggest removing the rocker cover, visually check for foreign objects and then spin the engine over - even start it up, if it will - while you observe the action of the valves from above, which should show if any have become stuck or are otherwise not doing their job.

Beyond that, whatever problem you have is going to require the cylinder head to be removed to properly diagnose the trouble, never mind repairing it. As I see it you have three options at this point;

1. Remove the cylinder head to diagnose and hopefully repair the fault. This would be my preference.

2. Source and fit a complete replacement engine that you may not need. Could be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire!

3. Give up and scrap the whole car.

Look at it this way. If you remove the cylinder head and it turns out that the engine is beyond economic repair - and I would be surprised if this were the case -  the only cost to you is time. You will get as much money weighing it in for scrap with the cylinder head in the boot as with it on the engine. You have nothing to lose and potentially everything to gain.

Should you decide to remove the cylinder head yourself watch out for the hidden fixing in the rear left corner. It's deeply recessed, hidden beneath the distributor shaft and you have to remove the distributor to even see it, never mind get a socket on it. But removing the head isn't such a bad job on an Acclaim, really - the carbs come off pretty much as one unit without disturbing the settings and there's not a lot else to remove.

I'm unable to help on which Hondas share parts with the Acclaim other than the contemporary Ballade, which was the same car but with wing mirrors rather than door mirrors. However, they must be as rare as Acclaims by now so probably aren't a lot of help. Perhaps Barry can put you straight on this one.

[Pawel Saladziak]

Bitumen boy, thank you for your message. I am leaning toward full engine repair, also including cylinder ring replacement if failure is caused by valves etc...
I had this thought today that engine cooling went off exactly the same time as this failure occurred so, while there is no water in the oil, maybe it is not getting there, but maybe still its only the gasket gone, but pressure from cylinders goes int water installation and this just blows it somewhere that is not a cooling circuit so this would be the reason why engine temperature goes so high so quick, and this was never an issue before.
And of course there is this knocking noise coming from engine while it is getting on the higher revs... and I really don't have any idea of what causes it.

[Pawel Saladziak]

Ok, my friend finally found some time to tinker with my maroon acclaim. So there are some cracks in head (still waiting for the pictures) and he said there is  compression loss in cyl. 3 and 4 due to a missing bushing. I am not sure if I use a proper term here but for this issue I have some pictures from him. He says that it is probably a floating bushing. Any idea whether this is true and if so, where can I get this part?
Anyone with spare acclaim engine or at least engine head here?

[Bitumen Boy]

Hi Pawel,

those pictures are a bit small (I know it's a pain resizing them for forum use) so I'm not 100% sure but to me it looks as if you have a hole between cylinders 3 and 4, like the iron cylinder liners and alloy block between them have had a chunk broken out of them. I can't think what may have caused such extreme damage short of a dropped valve which it doesn't sound like you have. Have you seen the engine yourself or are you just going on emailed pictures? I can't imagine what your friend is saying about a "missing bushing", that idea doesn't make much sense to me.

If it's as bad as it looks then it's probably game over for this engine. A specialist engineering firm may be able to recover it by building up the metal between the cylinders and fitting new liners, but that's not going to be cheap. More pictures, however, especially of the cylinder head showing the valves and combustion chambers, would be no bad thing.

[Pawel Saladziak]

I will get some better pictures on Monday. I misunderstood what he wrote me though. He was referring to a double cylinder tube (in polish it is similar word for bushing and a single tube). In some engines cylinder tubes are replaceable, here they are connected in pairs so the question is: are these pairs replaceable?

Anyone here with a spare engine?

[Bitumen Boy]

In these engines it would be a case of removing the old liners by boring them out - much the same technique as reboring to fit oversize pistons - then pressing in new liners. The sticking point would be the lack of metal between them, though that could probably be sorted too if you had very deep pockets.. I don't believe they are in pairs, though it may appear that way on first glance - but it's a good few years now since I had one apart!

[Pawel Saladziak]

I got some knowledge from f-book that block was cast on liners, do the engine is mostly dead. I found some specialist service in Poland that maybe could repair it but haven't contacted them yet, still hoping to get replacement engine.

[Bitumen Boy]

I confess I don't know how the block was cast originally, but bear in mind that the best way to repair something isn't necessarily the same way it was made. Actually since my previous post I've chanced to read up a little on different welding methods, and it may not be such a bad job as I thought to build up between the cylinders - for someone with the right skills. I agree though that sourcing a better replacement engine would be more satisfactory if at all possible. Are you any closer to understanding what caused that damage in the first place?

[Pawel Saladziak]

Quite regular shape of the breach lead me to believe that the engine was already faulty before I bought the car. It was probably filled with some epoxy-ish metallic something that eventually burned after three transeuropean rides from UK to Poland and back, with average speeds of 70 mph and more. The failure was sudden, and this makes me think so. Just for the sake of my non technical curious mind - what do you think of welding through the breach with either titanium or nickel alloy electrode and filling aluminium cast breach with melted alloy of the electrode. Would that be strong enough? This would of course require working out the surface inside the cylinder liner but I could prepare quite fine ceramic mould using the liner as a forming tool for preparing the mould.

[Pawel Saladziak]

Ok, I think I found solution. Cylinder liner replacement by boring them out and putting in new liners and new rings for cylinders, head and block polishing etc... Cos for all four liners: 350 quid, seems not so bad. But if cylinder 1 and 2 has almost factory compression, should I just live it like that or should I replace liners there too?

[ferny]

If you're doing anything, invest in doing the same to all cylinders. If you don't, you'll only have to do it to those you don't touch at some point in the future, with the additional costs of strip down, rebuild and time off the road.

[Bitumen Boy]

As Ferny says. It's not worth trying to skimp on the cost of machining as it will represent a comparatively small part of the total bill. What really costs is the time taken to strip down and rebuild, although all the new gaskets and other bits you'll need can add up to more than you expected as well. Do it right, do it once.

And take plenty of notes and photographs so you can write it up afterwards, because then it will almost certainly be the first documented rebuild of an Acclaim engine.

[Pawel Saladziak]

I was told by the garage engineer that their part will include: original liners boring out, cylinder aluminium block welding (it may include aluminium tube extraction but he was not certain about that, and said just as a precaution to me being cost optimistic), aluminium head welding, cylinder liners production and fitting, cylinder block and cylinder head polishing to get this perfect plane, also new rings and maybe new cylinders. There  is still some uncertainty about the crankshaft so this may also require some work. All of it will be done by very good family run garage running under the same name for already four generations, but it will be up to them for making pictures etc. I will ask them for documenting purposes of course, so maybe they will agree. I'm leaning toward the full rebuild but we will see, cant be certain now. I still would like to repaint the car  and weld out the week points and cosmetics like arches. I had some other spendings planned already as I am also restoring VW golf mk2 for my dad. So costs are piling up as you can see. If you have some graphic design jobs to do, I will happily take it, as I run small design studio business in UK 😉

[Bitumen Boy]

I've never heard of anyone having bottom end trouble with one of these engines, so hopefully you will be lucky. However, at the very least you should be fitting new shells to main and big end bearings, and new thrust washers - even if the crank doesn't need regrinding. Again, all this stuff is such a  pain to get at later on it makes sense to do a proper job while you can, anything else is a false economy.

[Pawel Saladziak]

I just scored quite big print production   , so now I am sure, it will be a full engine rebuild. I will also probably use even better workshop for this job, as they can carry out full engine rebuild, not only the cylinder head, and I would like to leave the engine in one shop rather than moving parts from one workshop to another. She will also get new paint, and welding, hopefully this will be ready for 10 country rally

[Pawel Saladziak]

Ok, here is the little update. Two sleeves are replaced, block and head welded and polished, waiting for measurements to check if replacing the other two sleeves will improve anything. In the meantime, I am after a full seals/gasket set for the engine, will this one work:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/132044255791

???

[Barry Acclaim Guru]

Yes I think it will Pawel. inlet manifold gasket wont fit but the rest will work

[Pawel Saladziak]

Thanks Barry,  found these cheaper, and also for the bottom end, so I will go with this one. What do you think of federal mogul seals?

bottom:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HOND.....%26sd%3D282052236746


top:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HOND.....%26sd%3D401129144177

The other two cylinders are in almost factory state said the polishing master from the shop so we ended up with replacing just the 3rd and 4th sleeve. Haven't seen it yet, but he somehow managed to build a pair that is in one piece or is a solid joined.