Knock after warm-up @ 1000 RPM

[Paulie]

Hello,
I am having an issue with our 2002 Chrysler 300M 3.5 HO motor and ANY feedback would be GREATLY appreciated. I will try to explain in detail so you have the whole story. Sorry so long.

2 weeks ago my wife took the Chrysler to get cigs. She said it was running fine, she turned car off, restarted and left and car wouldn't go over 40 mph and she pulled over and called me. She told me car wont start or stay running. I assumed something got wet from me just power washing the engine 2 hours prior. The car would start but would not idle and die, oil light also on. I decided to let sit there overnight and let dry out.
The next day I started car but again would not stay running and would die. I pulled all the plugs for inspection (they are new) they looked fine. I started the car and idled fine (no oil light on) pulled off to bring home and 3 blocks down it just quit. NO Power, no dash lights, NOTHING. Coasted into gas station and jumped batt. I got to run but then died out. When restarting 1 (one) bad metal clank came from the motor and I couldn't get to turn over again just a click. OK, bad starter so towed it home. It turned out starter was weak and also had bad batt ground. Got new starter and decided to do oil change while car was up. Castrol 10/30 plus filter like always.
I started car and it ran fine so I let it run to burn off anything (water?) and after 5 minutes it started to squeal like a belt was slipping then died. I restarted and the same thing, squeal then die. It was NOT the belts, they are new along with new timing belt, water pump, tensioner and pulley. I looked on line and found video on YouTube that sounded IDENTICAL, SPUN BEARING! I also confirmed this by transferring old oil into container and finding metal shavings, CRAP!
I dropped pan and got to bearings #1 cylinder (drivers front) was loose. All others seemed OK but since I was already in there I might as well do all of them since the car has 205,000 on it. I ordered the necessary parts (oil sending unit, pan gasket and bearing set). #1 bearing was flattened out and #2 bearing had pitting, all the others had normal wear and still in pretty good condition but changed them out anyway. I cleaned everything out on lower end very good, crank still good, surprisingly! I coated new bearings and crank in Lucas and torqued to specs and reassembled everything. Upon starting car wouldn't idle and soon after die. finally got to idle and after 5 minutes of run time RPM would go down so I would push pedal slightly to keep running and that's when engine started to knock on drivers front (#1 the one with the bad bearing). Sounds like piston hitting head and not lower end.
Thinking that the parts ordered were inferior (aluminum replacement and not stock steel) to the original I thought they failed so I disassembled everything to inspect the bearings and they were as good as when I put them in so I re-coated and reassembled everything. The car runs fine with no knocks (never even knocked with bad bearing when it was running) until 10-15 minutes of run time then it will ONLY knock on top when you push on the gas and gets louder over time. I put oil pressure gauge on and got 5-7 psi at idle and would go up on acceleration. It seems to be OK to me but i'm not 100%. I do not want to run for a long period of time just in case it is an oil pump issue and don't want to do damage to anything else.
Once again it only knocks after 10 minutes of warm-up and when applying gas NOT at idle and only seems to be on drivers front cylinder on top. Oil light comes on on occasion but goes away on acceleration or flickers at idle sometimes. New sending unit installed Could it be the viscosity thinning out, a clump of crap came dislodged and plugged something up, stretched out piston rod(online suggestion), re-clogged oil filter? I don't know where else to go from here except for replacing the oil pump which is quite costly and looks to be a real project and PITA! If I do replace pump and noise continues I have just wasted alot of time and money we don't have. I am out of ideas of what could be causing this knock. I am returning to work next week after layoff and need this car up and running for the wife. The wife has been using mine for work but now with me returning to work I need mine back.
ANY AND ALL SUGGESTIONS WILL BE CONSIDERED AT THIS POINT. Thank You, Paul

[carriedi]

I wouldn't replace the pump thinking the noise will go away. I would look for a replacement for your motor.

[SamOfThunder]

My 2003 Chrysler Sebring is overheating.

A mechanic friend of mine is trying to teach me how to work on cars, and we redid the head gasket and ran into many issues, and this problem is our final barrier from having a brand new car essentially.

Fans aren't coming on because the ECM is reading the coolant temperature 60degrees off. Not sure what is causing the false reading.
Replaced thermostat (a previouse "mechanic" had put it in backwards), pushed air through the coolant lines, gets good heat, fans failsafe come on when AC is on, I can manually hardwire the fans on, but this is not ideal, I would like for the system to work automatically.

feeling helpless, no one seems to have encountered this problem.

[carriedi]

you need to check the accuracy of your coolant temp sensor. your low speed fan should come on at 220F and off at 210F, and your high speed fan should come on at 230F and turn off at 220F. (depending on the engine, there is a couple of degrees difference, but, generally) If you use an infrared temp gun at the thermostat housing and the computer and the temp gun are 60 degrees off you should at least check that the CTS is good or not. They are not very expensive. Replacing it would be cheaper than taking it to a shop and having them test it. And if it's not the CTS then if you take it to a shop you can tell them that it has already been replaced so they shouldn't need to look at that. They probably will anyways but you shouldn't pay for that if it's good. (every shop is different though)

other things that can cause the CTS to read wrong is resistance is a problem with the wiring or maybe a bad ground connection. You could read the resistance of the coolant sensor. at about 77F it should have a reading 9 to 11 K ohms. at 212F it should be 640 to 720 ohms. That's resistance across the two prongs of the sensor with the wire harness disconnected. If the sensor ohms out good you're going to have to check the resistance at the wire harness to the computer. Disconnect the computer connectors and see it the readings are still good coming through the harness. If it's still good you might need a computer.

[SamOfThunder]

Thank you! I replaced the ECT sensor and that did the trick!

[94DodgeDakota]

I have a 94 Dodge Dakota and recently the heater stopped blowing as hot as it used to and takes longer to heat up.(Before this, it used to heat up quick and blow really warm) One day as I was checking and topping off all my fluids, I noticed wires (that were plugged into the firewall on the passenger side) smoking then the heater stopped blowing as hot and doesn't warm up as quick. Any suggestions on what caused this and how to quickly & or easily fix it for cheap? I'm on a tight budget and can't afford another hefty setback. Thank You in advance.

[carriedi]

can you tell me how many wires were affected and what their colors were? Can you follow the wires and see where they come from and where they go to?

your heater control should be cable operated. (don't use electrical wires) Your heater core should get hot from the engine coolant getting hot and the temperature door moves by cable to close off the cold side and get hot. It closes off the hot side to get cold.

Is your engine temperature run where it normally does? is the engine temperature any warmer or colder than usual? You could feel the two heater hoses that go to the heater core and see if they are both hot. If your normal engine temp. is around 200 degrees the hoses should be very hot to the touch. Are both hoses hot? that will let you know if coolant flow is passing through the heater core. If one hose is much hotter that the other then you probably have a restriction in the core. (or low flow which could be air in the system) Make sure the coolant in the radiator is full.

[tcraw]

How difficult is it to replace a radiator in an 04 Dakota??

[carriedi]

book time is 2.0 hours and level "D" in difficulty, so it shouldn't be very hard at all. (with automatic trans, slightly faster with manual trans)