Hi!
Need your advice badly on this as I´m thousends of miles away from any car mechanic I know and trust. Hope that some of you had similar problem and managed to fix it.
For the last 1800 miles I´ve observed a strange behavior of the engine noises. When the motor is cold everything sounds perfect, but after it warms up, in low RPM range (1300 - 2000) I can hear rattling similar to engine knocking, which gets louder as the engine gets hotter. I doubt it is engine knocking as the sound is there regardles whether I use RON 95 or 98 (US 91 or 94) and my ignition timing is very low - usually around 0*, never more than 3*. I also have the P420 error code, which has been troubling me for 15 000 miles (from Nicaragua?), but if the fuel wasn´t very bad I could get rid of it by keeping the timing between -1* and 3*. Now I have the code regardless of ignition timing advance. What´s even more strange once the engine is hot and knocking sound is there if I retard the timing to say -10* or -15* the knocking dissapears (but can´t countinue driving with this setting without P420 error code).
A friend of mine suggested that excessive valve clearence might be to blame (with hot engine the clearence becomes too big and thus the noises - but if it is that why would the sound disappear when I retard timing significantly?). I´ll be checking clearance in the incoming days. Do you think it might be it? Any other suggestions where to look for causes?
My mpg is quite okay - between 13.5 and 15 on tarmac.
Would greatly appreciate any suggestions as I'm in Cordoba (Argentina) and don´t know any mechanics around (and the FZJ80 isn´t particulary popular here). Some friends are flying in shortly to drive with us to Patagonia and would not like to drive there without fixing the problem (or make them wait too long as I´ll be tearing the engine apart to look for the cause).
Bartek
Need your advice badly on this as I´m thousends of miles away from any car mechanic I know and trust. Hope that some of you had similar problem and managed to fix it.
For the last 1800 miles I´ve observed a strange behavior of the engine noises. When the motor is cold everything sounds perfect, but after it warms up, in low RPM range (1300 - 2000) I can hear rattling similar to engine knocking, which gets louder as the engine gets hotter. I doubt it is engine knocking as the sound is there regardles whether I use RON 95 or 98 (US 91 or 94) and my ignition timing is very low - usually around 0*, never more than 3*. I also have the P420 error code, which has been troubling me for 15 000 miles (from Nicaragua?), but if the fuel wasn´t very bad I could get rid of it by keeping the timing between -1* and 3*. Now I have the code regardless of ignition timing advance. What´s even more strange once the engine is hot and knocking sound is there if I retard the timing to say -10* or -15* the knocking dissapears (but can´t countinue driving with this setting without P420 error code).
A friend of mine suggested that excessive valve clearence might be to blame (with hot engine the clearence becomes too big and thus the noises - but if it is that why would the sound disappear when I retard timing significantly?). I´ll be checking clearance in the incoming days. Do you think it might be it? Any other suggestions where to look for causes?
My mpg is quite okay - between 13.5 and 15 on tarmac.
Would greatly appreciate any suggestions as I'm in Cordoba (Argentina) and don´t know any mechanics around (and the FZJ80 isn´t particulary popular here). Some friends are flying in shortly to drive with us to Patagonia and would not like to drive there without fixing the problem (or make them wait too long as I´ll be tearing the engine apart to look for the cause).
Bartek