blown engine: 115k?

[90LegAWD]

unbelieveable. on the way to work today, it developed a severe rod knock. as i was coming home, the engine temp started going up, severe loss of power and it died. it would not idle or start up after that. nothing is visibly blown or leaking.

sad part is, it's got 115k on it. i thought these damn things were bulletproof? it's been well maintained it's whole life. where do i start looking for the problem?

i just replaced the water pump and all the oil seals and it's been running fine ever since. i bought the car less than 3k miles ago, and i've loved it every second. unless i can uncover a cheap fix, at this point, my plan is to pull another NA ej22 w/122k on it from a FWD auto 92 legacy from my local junkyard, and swap it in, then sell it.

[evolutionmovement]

Remove the spark plugs and check for damage/oil. What does the oil look like? Finally, take off the outer timing belt covers and check the belt. Could be a lemon or maybe the oil pump gave out. Still, that's low miles for anything to be wrong.

Steve

[90LegAWD]

timing belt was replaced by me with h2o pump. oil pump was inspected and re-installed at that time as well. everything looked flawless.

the car is still 45 mins away from my house. it's being towed in tomorrow morning, after that the inspection begins. first step is compression test. anyone know what cold compression numbers are?

[BAC5.2]

If all of the compression numbers are within a few of eachother, then it's probably fine.

I feel it's important to note, that just because something is new, doesn't mean that it isn't faulty.

Quality control isn't what it used to be.

My wager: Blown Headgasket.

Change your oil and let us know what it looks like.

[evolutionmovement]

Last Friday my 6 month old timing belt went due to a broken tensioner pulley bolt. I assumed it was a bad fuel pump by the failure mode, but when I tried to restart after swapping it out, I heard the free-wheeling sound of the crank dancing alone. Sometimes weird stuff happens, so I'd go through the checks first before calling it out. I'm not saying you're wrong, but that's real low miles and these bottom ends are tanks. Ever open one up and see the crank and rods? They're both forged, the crank's about 18" long, has 5 large main bearings completely caged by the block halves, with good rod journal overlap. I pulled mine apart at near 250k and the engine looked barely used. Very tough, so that's why I'd think something else first.

Steve

[90LegAWD]

i'd love to hope it's something different

blown headgasket certainly makes sense. unfortunately, i have ZERO time to wrench on this thing, which with such low miles on it was the whole damn reason for buying it

[evolutionmovement]

Sometimes low mileage is a bad thing. My sister's had tons of problems with her '91 Maxima that I think is due to not being used enough (old couple, about 8k/yr). My car, on the other hand has had extreme reliability with shorter life components (alternator, sensors, wheels bearings, etc.) and I was driving 25-30k/yr.

Sucks that it's cold now, too. Good luck.

Steve

[90LegAWD]

likely problem is spun rod bearing and blown head gasket. i'm not sure on which for either.

at any rate, i'm looking for a replacement vehicle for the time being. once i get a car, i'll focus on getting the wagon running again so i can sell it.