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99 isuzu Rodeo Dead Cylinder
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Regected
New User
Mar 13, 2011, 12:55 PM
Post #1 of 2
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99 isuzu Rodeo Dead Cylinder
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I've been pounding my head against the bumper on this one for about two months now. Here is what I'm working on:
1999
Isuzu
Rodeo
2.2L inline 4
87k miles
I discovered about three weeks after I bought this rodeo that there was a slight leak in the head gasket. Water was leaking into the number 4 cylinder. Water was not getting into the oil, and the car was not burning oil, so I just put some stop leak in the radiator to limp it along until the weather warmed enough to replace the head gasket. This worked for about a month, but the loss of water got to bad to put the head gasket replacement off any more. The car never overheated in a melt down type of situation. Anytime it started running a little hot, we would pull over and put water in it. Since the car was just for my wife to run around town(5-10 miles a day tops), just topping off the radiator before setting out was sufficient.
When the head gasket was removed, it was obvious where the water was leaking; the head gasket was de-laminated and eroded between the main water journal and the number 4 cylinder. None of the cylinder walls looked scalded, the head measured to be dead flat and none of the valve seats looked unusually worn nor burnt, so I just cleaned everything up and reassembled the engine.
The test start was rough to say the least. It took about 5 minutes of cycling the key and cranking the motor to finally get it to start. It ran very very rough. I let it idle for a few minutes, and took it for a drive up the road and back(about a block) to see if it cleared up at slightly higher RPMs. Well, it did a little, but I noticed a serious vacuum leak. The nipple for the vacuum on the EGR broke loose. Simple fix to just remove the broken nipple from the hose and press the hose back onto the remaining nipple piece. This cleared most of the rough running, but not all of it.
With the engine running more smoothly, I decide it should be safe enough to take it to autozone to have them pull the diagnostic codes. Only two codes come up. One is a sending unit error(very common with the rodeo) and the other is a dead miss on number 3 cylinder. I confirmed this by pulling the plug boots off the plugs one by one, and pulling number 3 boot had no effect on the engine at all.
I put a compression tester on it, and every cylinder tested right around 150-155 PSI. The spark on number three was a little...weird for lack of a better term. It was sparking, but rather than being a thick blue spark in the 1/2 inch range like the other cylinders, it was a long thin white spark up to 2 inches in length. I replaced the ignition coil pack, and now it sparks just like the rest.
Having eliminated spark and compression, moved on to fuel. After letting the engine run for a few seconds, I pulled the spark plug from number 3, and it is soaked in gas. Not being satisfied with this as proving sufficient fuel, i swapped the injectors between cylinders 1 and 3. Still no change.
Using a screwdriver, I listened to the lifters through the valve cover. Number 3 was more noisy than the other 3, so I pulled off the valve cover and listened closer with a piece of hose. The noise is the same between all 4 lifters on number 3 cylinder, but different than the other 3 cylinders.
I'm stumped. Anyone have any ideas? The ignition timing is non-adjustable. This motor was built to be more of less idiot proof, but also dang near impossible to diagnose.
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Regected
New User
Mar 13, 2011, 1:58 PM
Post #2 of 2
(3510 views)
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Re: 99 isuzu Rodeo Dead Cylinder
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UPDATE:
Just ran it back to autozone to pull the codes again. It came back with "multi cylinder misfire" as well as error code P1627, which I've been told is a malfunctioning sending unit in the fuel tank. Dang thing died on a 4 lane highway on the way back.
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