dieselloco427

Hi guys!

I'm looking at pulling the heads on my 3.0 this summer to clean carbon and have the heads resurfaced, etc. Seafoam* and the good old water trick have not helped in reducing the extreme amount of pinging that I get. A friend suggested that I have carbon hanging off the cylinder heads and on the pistons. I have no way of looking into the engine (is there a way? ), but I need to do the timing belt, water pump and idler pulleys so I figured that I would just dig into the heads.
Does anyone have any DO's and DONT's to this process? Also, what parts should I expect to replace when I pull the heads (obviously Head Gaskets, Bolts, Intake gaskets).
*yes - i replaced my plugs after I used seafoam.

DeathCougar

iTrader: (23)

Well one might ask, is your timing set correctly, and what kind of gas are you using?

Find a bore scope and take a look down in there before you go tearing apart your engine all the way

dieselloco427

Ignition Timing (10 deg BTDC) and Timing Belt are all set correctly. I took it to a couple of mechanics and they all verified that. I'm running Premium gas (93 octane here in VA) and it still pings like mad. The TPS is set correctly too.

JDMSLIK

I had this Kcar once that kept failing aircare due to high NoX.
The previous owner was a grandmother and was the original owner. It had just over 100k kms on it. Me and a buddy kinda figured there was alot of carbon buildup in the cylinders. So I pulled the spark plugs bought about 4 bottles of carb clean and for 2 days every morning and night I unleashed a bottle worth of carb clean furry and let it sit overnight or during the day. NoX dropped and I passed aircare.
It's cheap and worth a try.

dieselloco427

I've done that - spray a bottle of seafoam "Deep Creep", carb cleaner, etc through the intake and choke the engine to the point that it cuts off.
After the truck has had a chance to cool, I'm going to pull the plugs and see if I can "scrape" the inside of the combustion chamber and get a sample of what is in each cylinder. No one rents borescopes around here - unless there is a way to home make one. Just another tidbit of info: I checked the ignition timing once more this afternoon, and it is still at 10 deg BTDC. Just out of curiosity, I connected the timing light to each plug wire to see if the light flashed at the same rate on each plug. It did not. #6 and #2 were flashing twice as fast as #1 and other cylinders. This brings up the question of a bad distributor housing or ignitor. But I still have my eye on the carbon build up.

SEAIRESCUE

If you have given it a good water douche, I suspect you have a problem outside a perceived carbon problem.

Fuel delivery problems will cause spark knock. Dirty injectors, poor performing injectors, low fuel pressure, low fuel delivery, etc.. Run several cans of Berrymans Injector cleaner to see if conditions improve.

Poor performing cooling system will create hot spots and cause spark knocking. Weak radiator or weak clutch fan is likely culprit.

I see no issue with double flash on several cylinders. I would save this concern to last.

Poor ignition wires can cause delays in fire and can cause eratic timing to each cylinder. If they are really old, replace them.

Plugs. Go one step colder or ensure you have the correct plugs.

Problems with automatic transmission torque converter can cause excessive loads on engine. Uncommon but possible.

Plugged CAT can cause hot exhaust valves and spark knock.

Bad engine computer can cause ignition problems.

That is all for now and my $0.02. Start cheap and easy and work to harder and more money.

thook

Sorry to piggyback.....(I seem to be doing that a bit lately )

What does spark knock or pinging actually sound like, if you can describe. An audio bit would be ideal, but....

And, where is the knocking/pinging audible from....what location in the engine?

Now, to add my two pennies....

I agree with Seairescue. If the fuel delivery is too lean...from injectors, fuel press., fuel lines/filter, pump, etc.....you'll get pinging. Despite my own questions above, I do know these things will cause it.

From my experience with fuel additives, though, I had my injectors rebuilt during my recent engine overhaul and was surprised to find that none of the cleaners I used did much for them. Only one of the four showed decent fuel flow and pattern at all. Something to consider.

Last thing, the timing pattern difference you see between cylinder 1 and the rest is normal...from what I understand. I am told by a qualified mechanic that they will fire at different rates. Now, I don't remember the reason, but I do remember that is the case.

Okay....something about cam and crank positioning on each cylinder...rotating at different rates. NE signal at the distributor? Hmmm....time for a refresher course.

dieselloco427

thanks for the advice guys,

The "pinging" that I hear sounds like a couple of dimes in a tin can that are being shaken in the can. I'll see if I can put a mic under the hood while I am driving and get an audio clip.

My plugs are the stock type BKR5EYA (is 5 the hottest or the coldest?) and were replaced about 5k miles ago in addition to the plug wires
The radiator is brand new. I replaced it over the winter
I know the fan is good - I have someone start the engine when it is hot and I cannot hold the fan in place, so the clutch is kicking in

That's everything I can think of right now. Wait - according to NGK's website the BKR5's are the hottest and the BKR7's are the coldest... so I might have to hot of a plug - even though the BKR5's are what came in the truck... I'll try switching plugs and we'll see what happens...