Car started shaking violently when turned on this morning

[truckguy]

Got my 2007 Expedition EL limited a year and half ago at 169k miles. Ever since I got it, I could hear lifter click when driving. I asked a mechanic and he said it's a common problem and suggested putting some ATF in oil. I never did go that route because some people say that it's an old trick that should not be applied to modern cars. I have tried other stuff like sea foam, but the noise never went away.

I've been drving it for a couple months on my commute to work (50 miles round trip). Drove it yesterday and didn't notice anything out of ordinary. This morning I started it and immediately felt the car shaking pretty bad after I put it in drive gear. Going out of the drive way was a hard endeavor and it seemed to have lost most power. Just shakes and grudgingly goes forward. Had to park it on the street. However, now I don't hear the clicking noise anymore.

What would you say had happened with my car? Could it be as disastrous as this one:

 

[JExpedition07]

Oh boy, you can’t ignore that loud lifter tick type noise on OHC engines and oil won’t do anything for it. It isn’t a lifter tick, it’s a roller follower seizing in its bore and it can grenade the engine if it drops a valve into the cylinder. If left untreated can cause camshaft and roller follower damage at the minimum, can also damage the head if it throws right. It’s a shame this happens to people because it’s literally a $4 part. Almost always passenger bank 3rd cylinder back. At this point the valve cover needs to come off to see if there’s damage to the head.

 

[truckguy]

Thanks @JExpedition07. Will take it to a shop and see.

 

[TobyU]

Got my 2007 Expedition EL limited a year and half ago at 169k miles. Ever since I got it, I could hear lifter click when driving. I asked a mechanic and he said it's a common problem and suggested putting some ATF in oil. I never did go that route because some people say that it's an old trick that should not be applied to modern cars. I have tried other stuff like sea foam, but the noise never went away.

I've been drving it for a couple months on my commute to work (50 miles round trip). Drove it yesterday and didn't notice anything out of ordinary. This morning I started it and immediately felt the car shaking pretty bad after I put it in drive gear. Going out of the drive way was a hard endeavor and it seemed to have lost most power. Just shakes and grudgingly goes forward. Had to park it on the street. However, now I don't hear the clicking noise anymore.

What would you say had happened with my car? Could it be as disastrous as this one:

Amazing that valve didn't drop into cyl.
That one can be fixed with a new valve, spring, cam follower and lifter(lash adjuster), and cam.
You MIGHT even be able to clean up that valve stem with a dremel and get the tip nice enough and polished up since it is all roller and not have to pull the head.
Not correct repair but can work.
Even the cam if still egg shaped which if probably is could be cleaned and polished up and work fine and that would save pulling timing chain off of cam.

My biggest concern would be the notch in the valve stem for the keepers.
I would use new keepers and make sure the notch was sharp and correct.
If it is damaged you risk it coming apart again in short order and maybe not so lucky for valve to stay up in the head next time.

 

[truckguy]

Hi guys,

I towed my car to a shop. They checked it. Told me that they could not really diagnose the problem without taking apart a lot of stuff. And that labor could be wasted money. They did tell me that they measured the cylinder pressure and 3 out of 8 had less than 140psi, while the normal range should be over 180psi (sorry my memory is not that good. these numbers could be inaccurate). They think at this point the engine is toast and the only options I have is either rebuild it or replace it.

Do you guys think that this is the best way to go about it based on the observed behavior? Basically the car shakes hard but still barely drivable.

@TobyU How do we know that the valve didn't drop into the cyl?

Also @JExpedition07

Thanks a bunch!

 

[JExpedition07]

Well they are BSers if they say 140 psi is a failed compression test. Anything over 100 PSI passes dry compression test. If the valve dropped into the cylinder the engine would have blown apart, if the engine sounds nasty like metal on metal and won’t drive it’s possible. Also if the valve is stuck partially open compression would be low anyway. Only way to figure it out is to open up the valve cover and look into the head.

 

[truckguy]

Thanks @JExpedition07.
I think the numbers they told me were 135, 135 and 140 for 3 of them.

Should I tow it to another shop to have it checked out?

 

[JExpedition07]

It’s not a great situation and depends on budget. Myself I’d have a 2nd opinion and have the head opened up because if you don’t have the head opened up and just put an engine in you might spend thousands extra if it’s just a damaged cam and seized follower. It’s a “what if” until it’s exposed and looked at. I don’t like how they are blindly “diagnosing” it in your case without the proper procedure. It shouldn’t be much more than an hour or two labor to get the valve cover off and get the cam out to look at what you have.

 

[truckguy]

I'm a pretty handy guy myself. I've done a bunch of jobs on my other cars, like water pump, tie rod ends, wheel bearing, shocks, lower control arm, oxygen sensor housing gasket, etc.

Is this job doable by myself?

 

[Franklin Jones]

I too consider myself pretty handy, and the timing chain is the deepest I’ll dig into an engine. Head work is something I’d leave to a pro.

A few thoughts tho:
1. Did the cylinders with “bad” compression all line up on the same side? If so, could point to a head issue.

2. What were the compression specs on the “good” cylinders? In the Dodge Ram world, as long as you’re within 10% across the board, you’re in spec. In your case, that’d be 150 - 135psi.

3. Was it a wet test or a dry test?

Depending on how much time you have and how much you personally want to mess with it, I’d be tempted to put a stethoscope on it and pinpoint the noise.
Also consider pulling the plugs and dropping one of those usb cable cameras down into each cylinder, especially the “bad” ones. If you see damage or extreme scoring, just toss the engine. If everything looks fine and the bad cylinders are all on the same side, again I bet it’s a head issue.

 

[JExpedition07]

doable to imo yes, there should be a few tutorials online on pulling the valve cover and getting in there. Where there is a will there is a way, a seized follower will be easy to spot.

 

[bobmbx]

You can pull the valve cover yourself and take a look at the valve train. If its screwed up, the next step is to pull the head and look at the pistons. Pulling the head gets involved.

 

[Franklin Jones]

...measured the cylinder pressure and 3 out of 8 had less than 140psi...

@TobyU How do we know that the valve didn't drop into the cylinder? ...

If the valve dropped in the cylinder, you also would have 0 compression on that one, as you would have a valve-sized hole in the top of the cylinder where the valve •used• to be.

Since you do have compression on all 8, we at least know the valves are all still up top.

 

[TobyU]

I was referring to the video that someone posted. That one was amazing it didn't drop the valve. They were just posting that to give you a reference to what happens when the valve train messes up on one of these. The shop is full of crap. Basically, most shops don't like to fix things like that because it's too much intricate work and they don't have a real good guarantee of it coming out perfectly right off the bat and then the long-term durability could be suspect. Not normally but definitely if you're comparing it to putting a new, or rebuilt engine in.
So shops don't want to mess with it. Most shots mentality is they want to do it the best way and also sometimes the easiest way and they also like to maximize their profit. But they certainly don't want get to mess up in the near future and you not be happy with the service. A shop would rather charge you double for a repair and it lasts long term did you charge you half as much and you only get by 9 months or three or four years.
But they're still full of crap. Those compression numbers are fine for a engine to run. That would not cause violent shaking. You're more than likely have some cylinders not firing from the coils which they call COPs or you have a dead cylinder do to a valve issue or rocker follower popped out.

Your best way to diagnose it is to get it running and start unplugging 1 coil at a time.
As you remove the connector on a good coil it will shake even worse and you can tell it's not running as well. Then when you put it back on it will smooth out a little bit. When you get to the coils of the cylinders at are giving you the problem they will be little to no change when you unplug the coil.

This will tell you which side valve cover you need to remove. You could just have one cylinder messing up or you could have to. They will use it run okay on one cylinder but have a slight Shake in drive and have reduced power and you will certainly feel like going up hills once you're doing about 45 in an overdrive. Two will make them very very rough and kind of hard to drive. They usually won't even run with three messed up.
So start pulling the wires one at a time off of the coils and see which ones are causing you problems. Then pull off the valve cover and look around. I have had Ford modular engine such as these that simply had a rocker follower pop out with no damage. But normally they will be problem with the roller bearing and or the valve spring and keepers but as I said earlier, I doubt the valve strip spring or keepers have popped off otherwise the valve would already dropped into the cylinder and you would have ever dated a part of the engine.
I bought one one time with one dead cylinder and a solid miss. It ran okay but you wouldn't want to run it like that forever cuz it would damage your catalytic converter on that side and your power and gas mileage suffers. I bought it for a good price fully figuring I might have to put another engine or a remanufactured engine into it. Soon as I pull the valve cover off there was simply one follower laying there in the head that it popped out. There was no damage anywhere else and I went ahead and replaced that lifter and cam follower just in case. Had the car for 9 years and never had another problem at all.

 

[truckguy]

I just got off the phone with the shop. Asked them to reiterate what they did. They did electrical tests first and got nothing. So then they took the spark plugs off and ran an engine compression test (a dry test). The readings were between 130~135psi on cylinders 2, 3 and 4. All other readings were about 180psi.

 

[TobyU]

I just got off the phone with the shop. Asked them to reiterate what they did. They did electrical tests first and got nothing. So then they took the spark plugs off and ran an engine compression test (a dry test). The readings were between 130~135psi on cylinders 2, 3 and 4. All other readings were about 180psi.

And that will not make engine violently shake or miss.

I almost guarantee you if you get the vehicle in your presence and pull the wires off of each coil one at a time you will find a cylinder problem and it will not be all three of the cylinders that have the lower compression readings that they said.

 

[truckguy]

Sorry I might have used a wrong word. Probably not violently, just that the shaking was pretty bad.

 

[TobyU]

One cylinder not firing completely will cause a slight Shake in gear but will hardly be noticeable in park or neutral. Two cylinders will cause a pretty good Shake and three will barely run but just being low on compression is not going to cause that. Anything over 120 is plenty enough to run and give you normal performance out of an engine.

 

[JExpedition07]

Since you say your pretty handy I’d watch some videos and do some reading/ pull the valve cover to look at it yourself.

 

[purevw]

I've got a very similar situation. Had a tick. Per the local mechanic's suggestion, added Marvel's Mystery oil to the crankcase. The tick went away after a couple of days, but now I have a cold start miss. It clears up after the engine warms slightly. At times I get a "cylinder 7 misfire code" via my Kenwood unit which is wired into the system at those times. I reset it with the stereo and don't see it again until the next time it acts up. The engine runs perfectly once it warms up a bit.
On a possibly connected note, I have smelled coolant on occasion during cold start. If the coolant level has dropped, it is too slight to see in the reservoir. What I am wondering is, could it be possible that I have an intake seal leaking a few drops of coolant into number 7, causing the miss until it gets hot enough to burn it off, and it is unrelated to the valve train? Silicone hoses and seals are famous for having cold water leaks at times.
I should add that mine is a 2011 King Ranch EL. 5.4L