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23LSV with 383 HH-complete engine shut down with a new clanking noise


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Hey guys, so early this summer the 08 23LSV gave me a code saying that I had a misfire in cylinder 1, however the engine never skipped a beat, so I could not pin down a reason for the code. Being proactive, I went ahead did an ignition system tune up that included new plugs, new wires, and a new distributor cap and rotar. I also already knew that my alternator was wearing out since it is only giving me around 12 volts. I read in other forums that sometimes a shortage of voltage can cause weird codes to pop up but I just haven’t had time to unfreeze the bolts on the existing alternator in order to install the new one. After having several of my mechanics take a look at the boat we decided to take it out. The boat ran fine and I was thinking that the codes would clear after three heat cycles. Well we got out on the lake for our second heat cycle and the boat ran fine as usual. After floating out all day we started it up and began heading home and after 5 minutes I had a complete engine shutdown with absolutely no warning. Looked it over and started troubleshooting and could not see anything physically wrong. I tried turning the engine over and it did not even attempt to fire off and there is a scary clanking sound that you can hear at a certain point of the starting cycle. 

I need all the help I can get! Did I drop an injector and the injector get blown into the manifold or near the crankshaft? Is it possible to break the bell housing’s fly wheel splash cover without breaking the bell housing itself? And would that cause the boat to not even fire off? 

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How fast were you going when the engine shut off? Hard to tell but those symptoms sound like hydro locking the motor. Water in the cylinders, the starter won't crank. Pull the spark plugs and try cranking the motor to blow the water out of the cylinders. Still don't know why the engine would shut down though...

Edited by skurfer
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14 minutes ago, skurfer said:

How fast were you going when the engine shut off? Hard to tell but those symptoms sound like hydro locking the motor. Water in the cylinders, the start won't crank. Pull the spark plugs and try cranking the motor to blow the water out of the cylinders. Still don't know why the engine would shut down though...

I was at about half throttle maybe 3200 or 3300 rpms. It happened so quickly that I did not have much time to look at the gauges. It turns when I attempt to start it right now. It just sounds like it’s not getting fuel. But the clanking from within the motor is really prominent when you are cranking it. 

Edited by Imedrano
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9 minutes ago, oldjeep said:

Clanking could be a lot of things.  

 

Pull all the plugs out, turn engine by hand and use thumb over one plug hole at a time to see if you have a dead hole. 

I will give it a try. Am I wrong or would it still try to fire off if one of the holes is dead? I also have not had hardly any trouble with this engine so I am not educated at all on it, so forgive me because that may be a dumb question lol. 

Edited by Imedrano
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Just now, Imedrano said:

I will give it a try. Am I wrong or would it still try to fire off if one of the holes is dead? I also have not had hardly any trouble with this engine so I am not educated at all on it, so that may be a dumb question. 

It should, but if the engine is actually cranking and you have a clank then it woukd be best to check each cylinder. 

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1 hour ago, oldjeep said:

It should, but if the engine is actually cranking and you have a clank then it woukd be best to check each cylinder. 

Ok will do. I’ll post the results as soon as I can. any other quick tests that someone thinks I should do while I’m at it? 

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HH motor has been known to blow. Have you checked the dipstick? I'm hoping its just start making that clunking noise and not internal engine damage

I have seen some funny starter noises recently. You have bottom mount starter or top mount?

 

Edited by skurfer
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2 hours ago, Imedrano said:

Finally got the boat back home and starting following the advice. Checked compression in cylinder 1 and it was good. So while I had the plug out I check for spark and found there was none. Pulled the distributor cap off and the rotar was destroyed. It looks like I did not put enough locktite on one of the screws and it started bouncing around destroying things (the clanking sound). This experience was self inflicted. I’m picking up a new rotar tomorrow and expect to be back up and running. I’m also going to install the new alternator and hope that the misfire code that I am getting is a false code due to the extremely low voltage, especially since the boat had been running fine and the cylinder had good compression. I appreciate all the help! 

 

Good news. Changing the cap and rotor in that thing every other year is cheap insurance. Keep us updated. Did you hook up a test light to the positive coming out of the alternator showing only 12V? I replaced one bad alternator recently. With the engine off, the alternator wire showed 12V, with the engine running it dropped to 11.7V... :(

,

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Well I installed a new rotar and cap and it will start but it will turn over, hiss, backfire, and then finally start. When it starts it runs super rough and dies after about 8 seconds. I double checked all my spark plug wires and everything was correct. I’m now wondering if that little loose screw that destroyed the previous rotar, also knocked the engine out of time. Is that even possible? 

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11 hours ago, Imedrano said:

Well I installed a new rotar and cap and it will start but it will turn over, hiss, backfire, and then finally start. When it starts it runs super rough and dies after about 8 seconds. I double checked all my spark plug wires and everything was correct. I’m now wondering if that little loose screw that destroyed the previous rotar, also knocked the engine out of time. Is that even possible? 

Damn. 
I've definitely thought I had my wires correctly and realized I went the wrong way around the cap! Yeah, screwed with my engine for a weekend before I realized that! (Just saying it's really easy to think it's right-not questioning you, just saying it can happen to all of us.)
Anyway, as far as the screw knocking the engine out of time, possible. Maybe not plausible. 
If the screw lodged between the rotor shaft and the housing of the distributor it COULD have turned the housing in the block. Would take a pretty good turn to get it that out of time though. Not to mention the force required to actually overcome the friction of the hold down to the block. (Unless it was loose) 
You should be able to look a the distributor hold down and look for witness marks. If you see that it's not where it's been sitting for years, that would be a good indicator that it did indeed move.  

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@Imedrano:  It sounds like the engine is significantly out of time.  My suggestion would be to rotate the engine over by hand to TDC (and listen for any odd sounds), remove the distributor cap and visually check to see if the rotor lines up close to the #1 post on the distributor (and just slightly ahead).  I would mark the distributor for #1 and rotate the engine with cap removed to see if the rotor acts as it should.  If all good or not, and with your comments on the clank noise, I would want to dig a little deeper and probably pull the distributor and check it over for any damage based on the screw comment.  I don't think the screw would be the clank, that is something different or caused by the screw, such as the screw locked the distributor shaft and that sheared the pin on the gear.  The effect of that would be to knock the engine out of time and also result in rough running or not running at all including backfiring, etc.  Or, perhaps the screw has damaged the shaft bushings, you might try wiggling the rotor to see if there is any play, rotate it also for same feeling.

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11 minutes ago, Woodski said:

I don't think the screw would be the clank, that is something different or caused by the screw, such as the screw locked the distributor shaft and that sheared the pin on the gear

Great point! 

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You need to get a fuel pressure tester on that thing stat. That sounds like it's not getting fuel to me...Start with the basics. You need air, fuel, and spark...

Edited by skurfer
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10 hours ago, skurfer said:

You need to get a fuel pressure tester on that thing stat. That sounds like it's not getting fuel to me...Start with the basics. You need air, fuel, and spark...

Picking up a fuel pressure tester this morning! My plan is to do another complete compression test, double check the rotar and distributor cap, check my wires and plugs for spark, and check fuel pressure. It also threw two new codes, one says etctps1range and the other etctps2range. I went ahead and ordered a new throttle position sensor just in case, and it will be here Monday. 

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On 6/14/2018 at 8:23 AM, Woodski said:

@Imedrano:  It sounds like the engine is significantly out of time.  My suggestion would be to rotate the engine over by hand to TDC (and listen for any odd sounds), remove the distributor cap and visually check to see if the rotor lines up close to the #1 post on the distributor (and just slightly ahead).  I would mark the distributor for #1 and rotate the engine with cap removed to see if the rotor acts as it should.  If all good or not, and with your comments on the clank noise, I would want to dig a little deeper and probably pull the distributor and check it over for any damage based on the screw comment.  I don't think the screw would be the clank, that is something different or caused by the screw, such as the screw locked the distributor shaft and that sheared the pin on the gear.  The effect of that would be to knock the engine out of time and also result in rough running or not running at all including backfiring, etc.  Or, perhaps the screw has damaged the shaft bushings, you might try wiggling the rotor to see if there is any play, rotate it also for same feeling.

Thanks for the reply. So I can rotate the rotar and it won’t hurt anything? I was paranoid about moving it when I pulled off the cap thinking it would cause a timing issue. 

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@Imedrano:  You are not trying to rotate the rotor to actually move anything, you are rotating the rotor to verify it is solid and the distributor pin is not sheared.  You should only feel some gear mesh looseness but that should be minimal (+/-.020-.030").  If there is a lot of looseness then something is amiss, & if you can move it, there is already a problem.  There should also be just a slight amount of vertical play in the shaft as well.

Given the TPS seems to be throwing codes, if I am correctly interpreting your posts, when disconnected no codes are thrown, there appears to be a clue here.  Identical replacement parts appear to be giving the same issue (am I reading that correctly?), I wonder if there is some indexing issue with the TPS and it is somehow clocked to think the throttle blade is actually in a different position.  It could be either mechanical or even electrical sending an erroneous signal back to the ECM thus setting a code.  Are you sure your replacement TPS are the correct ones?

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1 hour ago, Woodski said:

@Imedrano:

Given the TPS seems to be throwing codes, if I am correctly interpreting your posts, when disconnected no codes are thrown, there appears to be a clue here.  Identical replacement parts appear to be giving the same issue (am I reading that correctly?), I wonder if there is some indexing issue with the TPS and it is somehow clocked to think the throttle blade is actually in a different position.  It could be either mechanical or even electrical sending an erroneous signal back to the ECM thus setting a code.  Are you sure your replacement TPS are the correct ones?

I haven’t yet replaced the tps. When I unhook the current (original) tps, I still get the same codes. 

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Just pulled the air in take cover off and there is a small amount of oil around the top of the four intake ports (I think that’s what they are called anyway) is this normal? 

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9 minutes ago, Imedrano said:

Just pulled the air in take cover off and there is a small amount of oil around the top of the four intake ports (I think that’s what they are called anyway) is this normal? 

Attach some pictures if you can.  That would help quite a bit.

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Another update, the distributor rotar can be turned 360 degrees by hand...go figure. I’m going to call the three surrounding dealers to see how busy they are and then decide if I want to try and tackle the distributor replacement myself or just sent it in. 

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you should be able to turn the outer distributor if the distributor hold down is loose. Can you turn the rotor 360? IF that is the case, something down in is broken. The camshaft, internal the engine turns the rotor shaft via a brass gear pinned to the rotor shaft. If you can turn that rotor, you aren't turning the cam shaft, you are spinning the rotor shaft on that brass gear, and that is bad.

Now if you are turning the distributor housing, the large outer part, that only means the locking mechanism is loose. That is how you time an engine, but adjusting that outer piece which in turn adjusts where the rotor contacts the firing points in reference to the cam timing. Make sense?

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@Imedrano:  A distributor swap is not hard, but (if all was good) it is very important to align the rotor to the #1 plug wire at TDC.  In your case, you will want to rotate the engine to TDC (since rotor can rotate you will now need to pop off the valve cover to verify valves are closed at TDC) so that when you reinstall the distributor you can align the rotor to the #1 plug in the distributor cap.  #1 is at the left front of the engine & many pictures available to assist via google search.

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