

| Subject: | Question 1 - Vanagon 86, 2.1 |
| From: | Georgios A. Stylianides, PhD |
| Date: | Thu, 3 Jun 2004 22:45:20 -0400 |
After an expensive repair and other fine-tuning stuff, it was time for timing adjustment. - 2250RPM, unplugged the Temp Sender, and turned the distributor left and right a couple of times to get it perfect. At one of those turns (probably more than needed), a puff of white smoke came out and the loudest engine knocking noise I've ever heard. Turned off the engine right away and took a big breath. -put the key in and tried again. Engine was running fine without any smoke or anything but the same very loud knocking noise. Broke our hearts! Thought I did something huge ... pistons, bearings... or who knows what! -disconnected battery +, disconnected ECU, walked away ... came back and connected them back again. -started the engine and could still hear a very silent low noise -decided to take it out of the driveway -as soon as I got out of the driveway, the noise completely disappeared -drove around and no problem. As a matter of fact, it drives the smoothest ever! The van hadn't moved for more than a month because of repairs (alternator burned, and so did ECU). Apparently, rotating the distributor caused something. I am thinking that it messed up the ECU. For a moment I thought that the engine was all messed up. Also, a few years ago, I heard a very low deep knocking noise that was not of major concern. I replaced the Fram oil filter with a VW one and the noise went away. Questions: What happened? Low oil pressure? Would the oil filter do something like that? We are not going to have engine problems now, are we?
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