1981 Subaru Brat Repair Question
Mileage: 234 miles.
Loss of cylinder after engine wash
Asked by HazMatAnswer
I would perform a compression test. Were you very careful in preventing water from entering the engine?
Yes, pretty much the only place water could get in would be thru the breather which i made sure i avoided. The thing that throws me off is the lack of clatter or any other noise when it is running. If there were strange noises such as clatter or clunks or rattles etc. i would be thinking many things such as a rod, bearing, wrist pin etc.
Have a comppression test performed as suggested and if the compression is low, it could be someting else.
The cylinder compresion could have failed due to weak rings, and that is not because of water getting into the cylinders. It could be that the cylinder was misfiring due to water contamination to the spark plug wires etc and the continued misfiring had caused the loss of compression due to excessive fuel getting to the cylinders and cleaning off the oil.
Check for vacuum leaks at the intake manifold for the particular cylinder.
I did a compression test earlier today and all cylinders were above average and grouped pretty close together. I thought maybe the new plugs/wires/cap/rotor might have been a problem so i replaced them again with all new. It fired up and ran great, but after a mile or 2 of test driving it it went back to running like crap again. I'm thinking tomorrow i may check the timing to see if it may have jumped on me. Maybe check the coil, resistor and capacitor as well to see if maybe one of them were damaged?
Recheck the distributor cap and ensure there is no water condensation inside it.
Have you checked for vacuum leaks. Not likely to be a skipped timing as it ran great for a certain period.
You are going to love this one. 3 NEW sets of plug wires later and 2 NEW rotor/caps later it is back to running great! I checked the coil/capacitor/resistor/vacuum lines, among other things and all checked out good. Did some reading on the timing and thought it unlikely it skipped a tooth as the old subarus are gear to gear instead of belt or chain. Guess it just goes to show you that you cannot always trust new parts. Thanks for all the ideas and help. It was much appreciated.
That i sone of the reasons I never like to use after market ignition parts and would rather go to the junk yard for used genuine parts.
Glad to know you have fixed the problem.
Have a great day.