So after I picked up that car from A.Tan Mike and I put a bunch of effort into fixing it up to drive. Then I had to wait for money to get it transfered, plated and insured and I find there are 407 charges from 2003 blocking my plate transfer.

I get that resolved and finally the car is plated (purchased in early September) and I take it out to get some gas. No problem. I get on the highway and accelerate fairly hard to feel it through. Smoke starts filling the cab pretty fast.

I get out and see that the valve cover is spraying out and burning up on the manifold. Thought I fixed that but I guess not. I get home and have no money for the gasket. I take my valve cover off and the gasket looks pretty good so I am not sure how it was seeping out. The gasket arrived today, and it was $77!

Most likely your valve seals and/or rings are toast and you are getting a lot of blow-by....a new gasket won't fix that.

You can't say that for sure. If the valve cover bolts are stripped and not torqued down, it will seep no matter what.

Put a small bead of RTV all the way around it and see if that seals it.

2 - 3 lbs/ft of torque on the bolts.

This is wonderful. I am not great at repairing things. I have another valve cover here from Mike and the gasket looked alright, but when I took off mine it was way better, so I am not surprised to hear that the gasket fix is not much in the way of a solution.

What is the solution?

BTW: I passed emissions with a near perfect score...

True, and that's the reason I said "most likely".
Having said that, the oil only comes out when he's boosting hard, which obviously pressurizes his intake system and makes it very likely that there is aleak somewhere.
Check your PVC valve while you are at it.
Another band-aid solution would be venting extra pressure into a catch can.
That's what I do, when I don't boost my car, I don't loose any oil, when I boost it, it all goes into the can.

Well, i got the old v-cover off and put on the one Mike left here - it looked nicer and seemed to be fine. I put the RTV in the top and put the gaskets in, then RTV on the back and put it down. I dont know how to measure 3lbs torque by hand, so i didn't turn too hard. I think I put too much RTV in because I was wiping excess off from the interior.

Hope this works. I thought I was getting into a better car than my beretta... To me better ALSO includes not needing to fix things every other week :S

If you don't like fixing stuff every other week, you shouldn't have bought a DSM.

Welcome to our world Lance

DSMs are quite reliable after you've replaced every part at least once.

It can be a pain at times when you feel afraid to push it hard. But consider this...a DSM is a tool to better yourself. How? the more work and experience you gain with a DSM the more you can apply it to different cars.

If I did not get a DSM and just some reliable car I wouldn't have met the people on here nor would I have the idea or courage to build a garage this summer .

One thing I would suggest is to stop putting your energy into complaining and put it towards the car. Scream a curse, slap your face and get to it.

N

I understand your opinions, and I am not against learning and growing and all that. Its just a matter of 2 things: time and money. Let me paint a picture for you...
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I picked up the gaskets yesterday afternoon and then went to get my kids from school. When I got home I made dinner for them and by that time it was dark, so i did not proceed withit.

This morning I took them to school, came back and took a phone call from a client, then went out to put the gasket in. I took my time and spent about an hour on it. I came in and worked until 3:20 and then went to pick my kids up from school, came home, gave them a bath, had a shower, then made dinner for them and we ate. After that I popped onto the computer to do some more work (I'm a designer) while they sat with me watching TV.

At the moment I have just finished putting them to bed and I have a pile of dishes to deal with and hours of work ahead, plus losing two days of time spent at the office, which effects the bank.
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So thats just how my life goes. Sometimes there is money, sometimes there is not, but allways there is a time restraint with my 3.5 and 5 yr olds needing me.

BTW, Mike Leclerc said this was a good buy, and that I would not have to repair it all the time, so I took his word for it and I am surprised that you all are telling me its all about repairing all the time. Keep an eye out for a 'for sale' thread in the coming months...

Well you may need to find a mechanic who is affordable and knowledgeable to do your work for you.

One of my profs at school has a 92 awd with 154,000kms he got it 10 years ago with 54,000kms on it. He said to me today that its been a great car to own and he hasn't had any problems with it. But he just did have to get all the valve seals replaced, timing belt, tensioner etc. Good thing for him is his brother in law is the mechanic at the mitsu dealer here, so he got an amazing deal on the work.

HELL NO! I have never met a mechanic who has been affordable or honest. As far as I am concerned they are all greedy opportunists. If anyone on here is a mechanic, sorry you're offended but that's my experience.

I used to have an affordable, honest mechanic, but he retired . I agree MOST are "questionable", but surely there are SOME honest and capable ones!!

It's a hard call to look at any car, let alone a DSM, and call it 'reliable'. Some are, but most aren't. Again, the key is if any work done to it was done 'right'...

But I also like how Rob put it.

I don't have kids, but soon after I got married I could see how things are going (days much like yours...), which is when I decided to sell the Talon. Hard choice, especially given the shape mine was in, but until I get into a position to be able to have a 'play car', it's just not worth it overall.

My Passat daily driver is a VW 1.8t, and I can have a little bit of fun with that, while being 'practical'. (Re: OLD) *Laugh*

Well, here is the update from this morning. I did not even get half a kilometer from my house and it was smoking like crazy. The leak is still there but considering my kids were in it and I was on my way to drop them at school I did not look any further.

Also, there is a rattling sound, similar to before (like the fly wheel is loose). I give up. This bitch is for sale.

Most mechanics are questionable? Are you serious?

Lance you just described my life everyday. I've done turbo swaps, fuel pumps, AFPRs and countless other things just fine. You just have to be a night hawk

Yes, I can't begin to count how many times I would come home from work, tired and sore, and still managed to get under the hood of the car to get something fixed...

Night hawk with a garage and a couple of big lights is the key. :-)

Lance, DSM's are reliable cars, I drive mine every day.
My DSM has been good to me (knock on good!!), at the beginning I had to fix a few things like wheel bearing, shocks, valve cover gasket (same as you), rear brakes pads etc. nothing mayor and after that every thing went fine, I consider that regular maintenance like any other car.

Lance...

Your engine runs tight. The car is a virgin. Your tranny problems are fixed by me, at my expense. Time and gas. this is looking like a bad guy thread on me. The car was cheap, and didn't need much to fix. you have a simple oil leak. clean up the engine first then find out where it's coming from. Find out what the hell is loose behind the engine and tighten it. Get a window motor and put it in.

That is his problems list. A sad list.

Mike is mad at me.
I am paranoid about this car.

I did do the window motor. I even had parts left over! (hahaha)

You lurked this forum for months, reading and researching as you claimed, and now that you have a car that you should have well known needs attention like a child in their terrible two's, you want out so easily from a few minor problems?

Dont expect sympathy on this forum, get your hands dirty, and learn a thing or two and fix your damn leak and and rattle stop whining.

welcome to DSM land, learn how to fix it, or sell it.

I'm a little pissed because your car is in fine shape, you knew it needed little things, as soon as you started driving it, it made a bit of noise so you unplated it and gave up. You have to expect tighening a thing here or there after you take it apart and put it together. I found someone to come help you because I can't.

Still you run back to a beretta that is a death trap.

Sorry, I haven't had a chance to get up there as of yet. I'll be out there on Monday, weather permitting.

Thank you Kevin for taking the time to check out my car tonight, I appreciate that.

Well, after Kevin and Raf looked it over I spoke to Mike and we are all not sure what that sound it. I recently got a camera (finally) so I made some video clips so we can all hear this strange sound:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq8URcq21AI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyGWG8MLc5o

The information for each video is there. To summarize, the sound is present when the clutch is up AND down.

Check it out and let me know your thoughts.
BTW, this is important as I do not have a reliable car for my to use this winter when taking my kids to school etc.

THANKS!

Was that knocking sound there before you bought the car?
Sounds pretty bad imo, could be a number of things, but its hard to tell where its coming from just by listening to the video.
First thing that came to mind when i heard that was this crankwalk video , i hope thats not your problem though.
Try to locate where the knocking is coming from, either from the head or the crank. Pop the oil cap and see if its coming from the head, otherwire you'll probably have to pull the oil pan.

I think that is crank walk , also there is something in your block making that noise.
Try to rev it to 5000 play with clutch and listen to it.

Noise is coming from the crank only when depressed. Not the head.

I disagree with his description and the noise goes away when you press the clutch.

Common indications of crank walk:

-Clutch pedal falling during left hand turns

-(obvious) excessive measure of crank end play

-the horrid noise that happens as the Crank sensor is eaten away when the clutch is depressed.



The oil leak is the least of the problems right now.

I don't believe it to be transmission related at this point

It's NOT crankwalk. The sound happens with or without the clutch depressed. It is RPM dependant. It is too random to be a bearing too. It sounds like the same noise I had when a balance shaft bearing worked it's way out.

That sounds like the connecting rod bearing is toast...and if not that, check your crank pulley.
I know when mine separated, I heard knocking from the engine, as the pulley started hitting the screws that hole the t-belt cover.
In anycase, I would not drive that car until I figured out where the noise is coming from.

Don't worry, I only have a kilometer on this car since Mike and I fixed things up. Its been sitting and this sound happened after going less than a kilometer, gently.

I am gonna take off the valve cover off and see if I left a scalpel in there or something.

I no longer am considering crank walk because as you hear in the 2nd vid, the clutch does not matter as I previously thought in vid 1.

Lance is not going to start the car again until we figure out what the problem is. I'll come there this weekend, if it doesn't snow...


It's just too random of a rate for that noise to be a bearing. I have spun a bearing before. The noise was very consistent. Then no noise at all

I do find it hard to believe that no one can tell where the noise is coming from. All you have to do is move your head around in the engine bay and listen...

Not that accurate, as you get echoes. Grab a stethoscopic probe and that'll tell you EXACTLY where the noise is coming from.

Lance is the love doctor not a PHD. He wont have a stethoscope...or would he?

Balance shaft bearings. Drop the pan, that's the only way to really know.

It sounds different than a Rod bearing knock. First of all it wasn't that loud lol. Doesn't sound healthy thats for sure. What Mike was saying moving your head around the engine bay works for me. To really hear where the sound is coming from, cup one of your ears and use that ear to pin point the noise. Or if you have a really long extention you can use that as a Stethoscope. Put one side of it to the engine, and the other to your ear, this always works for me. Anyway, good luck with the problem. Are you sure you didn't stop anything in the engine? haha.

Well, when I heard those noises... all I said was "Holy $h!t!!"

Definetly rotating assembly related. And yes, getting some feeler gauges and pulling the oil pan off is going to be the next step. Check your rod freeplay.

Also, loose flywheel bolts perhaps? Maybe there is a bolt flying around in the flywheel area? Pulling the tranny might not be a bad idea, just to check the condition of the clutch/flywheel assy.

We tightened the flywheel bolts when we pulled the bitch apart. That would suck ballz if it were tho.