Took the riv for a drive today to enjoy the nice weather. After ~ 30 minutes of highway driving i take an off ramp and notice clacking noise in the driver's top end of the motor. Oil pressure gauge seemed fine, but i checked the oil and it was couple quarts low. I put in a quart of oil and clacking sound went away. Some more driving on the highway and I now notice a vibration that starts at 3500 RPM and power feels a little sluggish. This happens in 1st, 2nd or 3rd gear. The engine has nice idle and low-end RPMs are fine. With transmission in park it also starts to vibrate >3500 RPM. previous to this incident the car would really pull well from 3500-4500 RPM. What happened? Thx
Pull the rocker arm covers off and check the pushrods and rocker arms....and make sure that you are getting oil up to them.... most likely what happened with the oil that low , was that the oil pump gulped a little bit of air and that caused the lifters to collapse... and then a push rod could jump off killing a cyl....
Dodged a bullet. The problem was a bad fan clutch. Swapped in a new one in about 30 minutes and everything is fine! :3gears:
