Engine vibration after rebuild

That plug looks pretty rough. But I was specifically asking about the gap. A gap that's way off can cause a low rpm vibration, so can the wrong plug. If you're not slap broke the first thing I'd do is make sure it has the correct plugs at the correct gap.

You'd have to have a crazy amount of carbon to hit the plug before it seats. Once the crush washer is crushed, the plug will seat pretty easily because the washer won't uncrush itself upon removal. I guess if you were curious you could stick something down the plug hole and see how far it goes in before it hits the cylinder and compare that to the length of the plug.
 
That plug looks pretty rough. But I was specifically asking about the gap. A gap that's way off can cause a low rpm vibration, so can the wrong plug. If you're not slap broke the first thing I'd do is make sure it has the correct plugs at the correct gap.

You'd have to have a crazy amount of carbon to hit the plug before it seats. Once the crush washer is crushed, the plug will seat pretty easily because the washer won't uncrush itself upon removal. I guess if you were curious you could stick something down the plug hole and see how far it goes in before it hits the cylinder and compare that to the length of the plug.
I should have mentioned I put new plugs in yesterday. One was tough to get in all the way, but with a drop of kroil and chasing with the old plugs, I'm pretty sure it's in all the way. They're all approximately the same height and I could feel them all meet resistance rather than just stop. It was probably carbon like you said that was stressing the threads.
 
One of the guys at work messed up on the balance shaft timing and what happened was the water pump thingie [ flange ] where the fan bolted on fell off so the water pump was changed. The same thing happened the second time so that started the diagnosis procedure.
 
One of the guys at work messed up on the balance shaft timing and what happened was the water pump thingie [ flange ] where the fan bolted on fell off so the water pump was changed. The same thing happened the second time so that started the diagnosis procedure.
The balance shafts killed the water pump? How long did that take? Was there also noticeable vibration? Mine (vibration) gradually gets worse from 800 to 1200 rpm, then smooths out.
 
I have the feeling good money is going into this after bad. At some point you need to either replace this with a lower mile used engine or walk away. JM2C
The car is great except for the vibration between 800-1200 rpm that wasn't there before. I'd just like to figure out what's causing that.
 
Through the use of a slow motion camera and a little math, I've determined the vibration frequency is 2X the RPM. I don't know if that's useful, although I do know the balance shafts create a second order vibration(twice as fast) There are also 2 spark events per RPM on a straight four cylinder, so is that just how the shafts work?
Anyway, checking/realigning the balance shafts is actually doable on this car, but I don't want to take off the oil pan until I've ruled everything else out.
The vibration is not unbearable, but I know it shouldn't be there.
Any thoughts are always appreciated :)
 
Last edited:
Use of a slow-motion camera to diagnose a vibration is a killer technique!

By the nature of a reciprocating engine using short (actually, finite!) connecting rods it is impossible to perfectly balance the moving parts just by altering those at crankshaft speed. The F=MA for the rods and pistons moving down is not actually exerting force equal and opposite to those going up throughout the entire rotation.

Another way to say the same thing: The forces exerted by the various moving masses as they accelerate/decelerate are not sine waves at crank rotation frequency: If they were they could be fiddled to cancel out. They're distorted so that the best possible cancellation still leaves 'bumps' of force at multiples of crank rpm.

The unbalanced force is zero at crank rpm but non-zero at even harmonics 2, 4 x crank rpm. This can be cancelled (thus giving you a much smoother running engine) by installing shafts with properly chosen counterweights that rotate at 2, 4 x crank rpm and that are properly timed to cancel the unbalanced force from the rods and pistons.

I think this is a remarkably ugly scheme but it works: I've got cars with very similar Mitsubishi engines (I4's, same year but different displacement/model) both with and without balance shafts and there is a dramatic difference in the smoothness of those engines. The arrangement on the (balance shaft) 4g64 engine is quite unlike that on your engine but it is easy to time the 2x shaft 180 out so it doubles rather than cancels the engine vibration. Mechanics do this rather frequently and I've actually driven a car that was mistimed -- it was bad.

The good thing about the Mitsubishi scheme is you can check for this mistake quite easily -- put the engine at TDC on #1, take out a plug on the block, stick in a screwdriver, and if it goes in 60 mm that shaft is correctly timed. If it goes in much less it's wrong and you must do the timing belt remove/replace operation and this time follow the directions for correctly timing that shaft.

I just did that process in order to replace the oil pump on one of my cars ... 4-6 hours work if all goes well. But checking takes 5 minutes and I could do it in a parking lot with just 12 and 22 mm sockets and screwdriver.

I don't know if there's an easy way to check shaft timing on your engine -- a forum for that car or engine would be able to tell you. If it's wrong you have to remove the pan and the timing shaft assembly to fix it.

A good mechanic would deal with this pretty quickly if there isn't anything in the way of getting the pan off -- like a transfer case for 4WD for example. How you find that mechanic I've no idea: The reason I do almost all my own work is I couldn't find one in this semi-rural area.

I make plenty of mistakes but only really stupid ones -- not the ones you can avoid by reading the directions.
 
Use of a slow-motion camera to diagnose a vibration is a killer technique!

By the nature of a reciprocating engine using short (actually, finite!) connecting rods it is impossible to perfectly balance the moving parts just by altering those at crankshaft speed. The F=MA for the rods and pistons moving down is not actually exerting force equal and opposite to those going up throughout the entire rotation.

Another way to say the same thing: The forces exerted by the various moving masses as they accelerate/decelerate are not sine waves at crank rotation frequency: If they were they could be fiddled to cancel out. They're distorted so that the best possible cancellation still leaves 'bumps' of force at multiples of crank rpm.

The unbalanced force is zero at crank rpm but non-zero at even harmonics 2, 4 x crank rpm. This can be cancelled (thus giving you a much smoother running engine) by installing shafts with properly chosen counterweights that rotate at 2, 4 x crank rpm and that are properly timed to cancel the unbalanced force from the rods and pistons.

I think this is a remarkably ugly scheme but it works: I've got cars with very similar Mitsubishi engines (I4's, same year but different displacement/model) both with and without balance shafts and there is a dramatic difference in the smoothness of those engines. The arrangement on the (balance shaft) 4g64 engine is quite unlike that on your engine but it is easy to time the 2x shaft 180 out so it doubles rather than cancels the engine vibration. Mechanics do this rather frequently and I've actually driven a car that was mistimed -- it was bad.

The good thing about the Mitsubishi scheme is you can check for this mistake quite easily -- put the engine at TDC on #1, take out a plug on the block, stick in a screwdriver, and if it goes in 60 mm that shaft is correctly timed. If it goes in much less it's wrong and you must do the timing belt remove/replace operation and this time follow the directions for correctly timing that shaft.

I just did that process in order to replace the oil pump on one of my cars ... 4-6 hours work if all goes well. But checking takes 5 minutes and I could do it in a parking lot with just 12 and 22 mm sockets and screwdriver.

I don't know if there's an easy way to check shaft timing on your engine -- a forum for that car or engine would be able to tell you. If it's wrong you have to remove the pan and the timing shaft assembly to fix it.

A good mechanic would deal with this pretty quickly if there isn't anything in the way of getting the pan off -- like a transfer case for 4WD for example. How you find that mechanic I've no idea: The reason I do almost all my own work is I couldn't find one in this semi-rural area.

I make plenty of mistakes but only really stupid ones -- not the ones you can avoid by reading the directions.
Great write up, thanks! Mine is not terrible, and it's also inconsistent. At the same RPM, it can be anywhere from rattling loose items in the car to 'hmm, if this is as much vibration as I'd ever get, I'd be happy.' Somehow, it gradually gets worse the longer I drive and is most pronounced right after hot start. It's also worse when the lights are on-maybe not because of electrical load, but because it idles up into a trouble spot in the RPM band. Unfortunately, there is no way to look at my shafts without removing the oil pan, but they are easy to remove since they are not connected to the chain, rather just sitting on gears and bearings. The vibration at 950 RPM is intense and alarming, but fortunately the car lives there only briefly. The vibration gradually goes away above and below 950, but that is the peak of the rough patch.
 
Back
Top Bottom