If you'd rather not attempt taking it apart yourself you should start calling local automotive votech schools and see if one will take your car on. That way you'd have someone a bit more experienced working on your car with an instructors supervision and it would only cost you for parts.

It's an idea. It's been run without oil and the chances are good you have a lot of metal sitting in the pan. It would be nice to swap out the main bearings and connecting rod bearings on top or whatever it will take to quiet down the valvetrain.

 

It's the engine you need to be concerned with. If it came right down to it you could buy a turbo rebuild kit on Ebay for 60 to 110 depending on the quality and send me your turbo and I could rebuild it in a couple days. All you'd be out is the cost of the kit and shipping.
Up to you if you'd want to send it out to have it balanced.

Just starting to get this one cleaned up and back together.

 

A misfire code is essentially the computer seeing a lack of power (acceleration) from that cylinder's power stroke. If you had a valve (or valves) that were not opening fully, because of tappet or camshaft wear, for example, it would cause that cylinder to fail to develop pressure (power) and would make a lot of noise.

 

I will get the tool to do a compression test on the cylinders...that makes alot of sence to do 1st. If the rings/cylinder wall or piston is bad then it will be too costly for me to repair.
If the compression test checks out OK, then ill pull the head off.

I studied stuff a few years back on motor internals. If I recall correctly, a hydrolic lifter uses oil pressure to keep the lifter adjusted. Thus, with no oil they could have been a fair bit off...causing them to work poorly. At high rpms (as I did the short muffler test) I would think this may have caused the lifter to become damaged. It would be nice if all I had to do was replace the lifters.
But I have also worried that other parts...which may be fine now...did get thousands of miles of ware in that short trip as was mentioned. They could fail a week, or months down the road.

I hadnt thought of the votech schools. There is one in town. I may call them tomorrow. Due to the nature of this case, it could be a perfect instructional tool for the class.
Instructor says "Notice how this fool ruined his hydrolic lifters here....and toasted his crank shaft bearings there....as you can see, its very bad for a motor to go without oil, even for a short bit"

If I had someone else to do the work for free, and I only had to pay for parts that would be a huge help. Especially since I may find I dont have some of the tools to do the job right. Already I know id have to buy a torque wrench!

 

But for all the engine neglect this car has a well lubed transmission

 

lol frog

Damn nitro, I hope for the best..

The first oil change I did on my car, I wanted to drain the oil cooler as well.
I ended up draining the trans cooler, halfway through, I caught my mistake. So i scooted over to the passenger side and drained the oil cooler.

Upon finishing up my oil change with 6 qts of mobil 1 syn (5.6qts if oil cooler not drained) I started her up, heard a pop, oil light lit up, walked to the front of the car.

Then saw a puddle gushing toward my feet, 4 seconds later I knew it was oil!! Ran back into the car, shut it off.

Turns out the lower clamp that held the oil line popped under pressure spewing all my new oil ($65) worth all over the place.

Lucky for me I caught it in time and shut the motor down, rode my bicycle to the parts store for another batch ($65) of synthetic oil.

Hasn't happened since... I did my oil change today (once every 6 months/3000 miles) and took my sweeeet time, left the oil cooler alone tho.

 

LOL, well good to know Im not the only one to make these kinds of mistakes. Its just sad that mine cost me some top end damage.

I wrote an email to the guy who runs the VOC center's auto program. I explained my plight. Im hoping the chance to tear into a motor (and a turbo charged motor at that) is something they would like to do.

I know with those programs they like to pick repairs that have to do with what they are learning at that time.

If it comes down to it, Ill open the motor myself. It wont be the 1st time working on repairing a car where I have no experience in what im doing...lol. I have done things like brakes, cooling system, steering pump, fuel pump, struts, ect....just nothing envolving the insides of a motor yet.

My buddy who's house I was at when I goofed up said yesturday "have you fixed your car yet"....knowing full well I had not. I wanted to punch him. My poor volvo is just sitting in my garage....waiting for some attention.



OH, and my "R" ecu came saturday, the day after I screwed up the motor

 

Your "friend" is the reason they make Tasers (hit him again)

 

well its a no-go for the votech school doing the work.
They said they dont do engine rebuilds. And the teacher feels that a crackshaft bearing would have been the 1st thing to go.
He thinks I would be best off looking for a used motor.
I have no doubt that the noise I hear is in the valvetrain, but I do worry that there may be other damage that I wont find...till Ive fixed the valvetrain and start driving it again.

 

man, I just called the local engine rebuilding shop(only one I know of) and was told they DONT do volvos. He said it was mostly cause he doesnt have a good source for parts.

 

Go ahead and do that compression test.

 

If the compression test is good make sure the oil level is good. Take it on an easy ride for like 5-10 min. See of the noise goes away. Once lifters are drained it takes a long time to get them all pumped up.
When my motor went from lack of oil due to being on a race track the rod bearings were bad not the main bearings.
If you still hear a noise after that and it seems like lower end drop the oil pan and inspect the rod bearings first. Then go from there.

I have seen the rod bearings go out first on these cars over main bearings.

 

compression test done
cyl 1: 170
cyl 2: 165
cyl 3: 173
cyl 4: 168
cyl 5: 158

cyl 5 is a tad low, but my manual says 156-185psi is within specs.

Thus far, the car has been drivin 3-4 minutes and idled 10-15 minutes with fresh oil. The noise has yet to dissapear.

Would dropping the oil pan be the next step? I can swear the noise is near the top of the motor...around cyl 4-5. But if dropping the oil pan is really easy, then maybe I should before taking the valve cover off?

Or could draining the oil again possibly help? I mean, that could get metal out if there is any.

I may get down to the voc school tomorrow. the teacher said he would be happy to listen to the motor and give his opinion.

I am glad that the compression test didnt show any issues. If a piston/ring was damaged that would be more than I could do myself.

At least I am learing alot about my engine

 

Well after putting a head on a car that someone brought in without the lifters sitting in oil they will tap for a while. I have had cars sitting for 20-30 minutes and still have lifters make noise. A 10 minute trip of doing about 30 to 40 MPH pumped them up and they were quiet after that. Also on my car when it had 2 spun bearings at idle never made any noise. When you first hit the gas is when you would hear a noise.
Here is what my bearings looked like.

 

Ok, Ill give her a drive tomorrow and see if it helps the lifters quiet down any.
They are hydrolic lifters right? Meaning that oil pressure keeps the lifters adjusted correctly? At least thats what I think I recall reading. If thats so, and the lifters are dry...then they may not be adjusted right, right?

also, here are pics of the spark plugs. all looked about the same, had a yellowish color on the tips.

The info I found online showed plugs with yellow tips and called it "breakage" and said its from rapid thermal expansion, heating/cooling.

Sounds like my trip without oil may have aged my plugs alot. Maybe I should replace them? Pitty, they are only 150 miles old!

 

I mean, if you want to risk them cracking and tossing bits into your turbo, or scoring your cylinder wall, that's on you. :P

If the lifters aren't pumped up, no it will not be in adjustment/contact for normal (and quiet) operation. I thought you had driven it a bit more than that with fresh oil. Yeah, definitely give it a chance to pump up. I stored mine in oil when I pulled the head, and it still took a good 10 minute drive for them to quiet down.

 

Ok, tomorrow Ill get new plugs....another $30 spent

Then ill take it for a drive and give the lifters a chance to get oil.

Man, it would be really great if that fixed it. I mean, I could still have other issues to tend with...like the turbo. but with it tapping like it does I havent driven it hard enough to know if the turbo is working or not. Plus with there being some misfire it wouldnt work right anyway. I can say that I dont see any excess smoke from the exhaust....nor do I hear any of the sounds like what I found on utube clips of bad turbo chargers.

If the lifters dont have oil...and are not adjusted right, the sound would become worse as RPMs increase right? I would think the mis-adjustements would cause the power loss to be greater at higher rpms as well?

Anyway, ill get new plugs and give her a nice gentle 20 minute drive tomorrow and let you guys know how it goes.

I appreciate all your help. Just having someone to listed to my woes helps alot. When part of me wants to give up on the car, I jump on here and do some reading and it seems to make me feel better and want to fix her up!

 

Just get standard copper core plugs 1.99 or 2.10 each. At least for now till you find out if it's going to get by or not.

 

Yea, don't get any fancy plugs, the car will run fine with the plain copper plugs, just use more gas and maybe lag on WOT. Then like Tech said, drive around a little and be gentle. Your turbo will turn even if you're not boosting. Try to keep the RPM's under 2,200, it will shift and try to stay with walking distance to home. I'd drive for about 30 minutes, heck, what do you have to loose, drive around for a day (have someone on phone standby). Once warmed up all the way with full oil pressure, you may get the oil circulation you need.

Were you using synthetic oil?

 

yeh, its got 5w-30 synthetic in it.