Never heard this sound before in a Panther?!?!?!?

[porschpow]

I noticed this after driving a while, maybe its been going on and haven't noticed this in a while.

Anyway under a load D or Overdrive I can hear a chattering, pinging knocking while I am driving. Its more obvious if I give it gas just after changing into third and fourth gear.

I have never heard of this sound coming out of Panther, A corolla yeah, but not my car

Has anyone had this problem with their car and what is this?

Im really starting to get pissed off here!

[79lincolnlover]

How many miles on the engine?

[gadget73]

sounds like detonation. If the timing is overly advanced, or if the engine has a lot of carbon in it, it will do this.

[porschpow]

the miles are 132,xxx.

The only thing I could think of is the timing chain has slack.??

I don't know.

[sly]

weak gas, old gas, TFI being stupid, temp sensors being stupid, TPS being stupid, may all do this as well (these can all be tested with a multimeter - preferably analog on the TPS so you can see any shenanigans along the full sweep). Might wanna seafoam it to make sure it's not carbon buildup.

[91waggin]

Check for codes. These cars have problem with egr valves leaning out the mix which causes detonation.

[porschpow]

weak gas, old gas, TFI being stupid, temp sensors being stupid, TPS being stupid, may all do this as well (these can all be tested with a multimeter - preferably analog on the TPS so you can see any shenanigans along the full sweep). Might wanna seafoam it to make sure it's not carbon buildup.

I will fill my car up with hi test in the way home

As for the sensors, I have a multimeter, but to put it plainly, i am lacking in the understanding of how to use one!!

As for the seafoam, I was going to seafoam through the intake, and the gas tank but i am still a little on the fence of running it in my crankcase

[porschpow]

these cars have computers?!?!?!? Where is this computer??

I removed the vacuum hose going to the egr valve on the upper intake (and corked it), cause I thought it was giving me the shakes/pulsations/vibrations between 50-65 mph

BTW, how do you test if the solenoid is bad

[sly]

check out the sensor pages on oldfuelinjection.com they have graphs and stuff to tell you the ballpark figures the sensors should show via various testing methods. The easiest is to back-probe stick the pointy probe down along the wire to make contact with the crimp inside the harness. Getting a good contact can difficult sometimes. This can be tricky to even follow the wire with some (I have some thin paperclips unbent for this purpose with one end bent in at a 90 degree angle, but very short - 1/16 inch). You use the volt setting and the red lead for this with the black lead connected to a good ground point on the car (alligator clip to an engine/accessory bracket works well). The ones that have ohm values, you can just use both probes and probe across both leads (disconnect the wire harness). Use the resistance (Ohm - Omega symbol) setting.

[gadget73]

If unhooking the EGR valve didn't change anything, then nothing in that system is a problem.

Yes it has a computer. Have you ever checked it for codes? That might tell you something. Just out of curiosity, what did you think ran the fuel injection system if not a computer?

At 132k, it should not have a sloppy timing chain unless you have one of the unfortunate ones that got the random shitty chain. A few showed up after 85, but its very random. Most 86+ cars had a double roller chain thats still plenty usable at double your mileage. The older ones had a crappy chain that was dead by 120k. You can usually tell by checking the timing and watching for the mark to move. If there is slop in the chain, the mark will dance around. if its decently tight, it will hold steady. You can also remove the distributor cap and rock the crankshaft back and forth with a breaker bar. Slop in the chain will show as rotation of the crank without the rotor moving.

which solenoid? The starter solenoid? Try to start the car. If it turns over, the solenoid isn't bad. If it clicks and does nothing, it might be bad.

[miamibob]

I think he meant the EGR Solenoid???

[gadget73]

Oh. Hook up a vacuum gauge and go for a drive. It should smoothly increase from 0" of vacuum to 8" of vacuum depending on speed. If it goes from 0 directly to 8, its sticky and can probably be fixed with a few good snorts of wd40 into the unit. If it never moves from 0, its bad or there is a vac leak. If its more than 0 at idle, its jammed open. If it doesn't run any different hooked up vs unhooked, its at least not faulty in a way thats causing any problems for you. The EGR should be pretty much unnoticeable when it works correctly. You only know its there if its operating incorrectly. If its doing nothing, it usually makes no difference except for maybe a bit of detonation and slightly increased fuel burn, along with increased NOx emissions.

The fact that its detonating with the EGR unhooked tells me it may have been working.

[porschpow]

you would spray wd40 into the solenoid, what part? or do you mean spraying the actual egr valve?

[gadget73]

unhook the hoses from the solenoid, give a quick snort in both openings. Remove the cap, remove the filter (or whats left of it) and give a snort down the tube thats sticking up into the filter area. Plug the parts back together and see if it works.

Again, if it did not run differently with the EGR unhooked, this probably will not fix anything.

[porschpow]

Ok, I will try these recommendations this weekend. Thank you Panther GURU's