[kaulana]

I've got such great luck that about 6 months ago my timing belt broke. Fixing that was lots of fun. Now that my work is about to pick up for the season and I need my truck. I hear a rattle sound this morning, it sounds like a rod is about to shoot out. I instantly turn the truck off. It sat all day at work, but I need to get it home. At the end of the day I jumped in and tried to crank it up. Now all I get is the starter turning, but no fire. It also seems like its flooded. I never touched the gas. I think that I have a broken rocker and the valve is open, causing the smell of gas. Of course the rattle is not happening when cranking. Any input? I"ll get it home tomorrow and start tearing it apart. Hopefully I can remember to take pictures to keep track of the process. Just in case it's asked. I have a 99 v6 4wd.

 

[Mr Spock]

Dude, that blows! Not sure but you are attacking it the way I would. No fuel line, injector, or rail problems? I accidentally jammed an injector wrong on an install once and had to go fishing for parts and fix a gas leak on my exhaust manifold.

 

[kaulana]

This was after removing the upper intake manifold, or my favorite "the plenum". Of course the two hoses in the back were a pain to remove.

The driver's side valve cover removed, exposing the rocker arms. The rail that the rockers attach to has cracks running all the way down. It is the lifter guide assembly. My thinking is that the erratic tapping I heard was the rocker hitting the valve cover, and is wasn't a constant sound because all of the rockers were moving around more than they should. I can't move them by hand, but with compression I think that, where I see the cracks, it is actually splitting apart.

 

[kaulana]

Here is what it looks like after removing the rocker arms. I'm glad that the rockers are on a rail, so that they all stay attached. Makes it easy to keep everything together.

It might be hard to see, but there are good sized cracks all down the center of this piece. The lifters, I'm sure spread the cracks open when in motion. If I picked the assembly up, I would be able to see the camshaft. I need help finding the lifter assembly. I've called both dealers that are close, of course none of them have ever gotten this far into a motor. So they had no idea what part to lookup. And in eastern nc, none of the junkyards have any wrecked frontiers.

 

[atroader]

Hard to tell from the pics, but are you sure the 'cracks' aren't just casting flash covered with oil??

 

[kaulana]

After looking at it further, the cracks aren't all the way through. It probably is just marks from the casting. So, now I'm unsure of what could cause such a strange rattle. And what would cause it not to start. I will take off the top timing cover this afternoon and make sure everything looks good there.