Even after disassembly I never found the source of the odd mild at-idle "knock" from the crankcase! It came out of the oil filler neck, so it was definitely down the bottom end. It behaved exactly as if it was the fuel pump cam hitting the fuel pump lever. If you revved it or even just blipped the throttle, it went silent, then a few seconds later it would gently get louder. Not loud though, just tank, tank, tank, tank, ... If you picture what the fuel pump diaphragm is doing down there, the lever pushes the diaphragm up against the spring, and it fills with gas. Lever falls back down, and the gas tries to press out towards the carb. But at idle the carb is full, the needle is against the seat, so the gas only seeps out of the pump. Next time the lever comes up, the diaphragm is still full of gas, and there's a big gap 'tween it and the lever. >TAP< as the lever moves through open space and just taps the almost-full diaphragm just a tiny bit.... rev it up, the carb takes fuel, the diaphragm drops, the lever hits it earlier, it's quieter. That's all I could figure was going on. All the bearings were very worn, copper showing and abrasion, but nothing broken, gouged out, loose, etc, just lots of years and miles. Cam had that mild fine black pitting from wear with no oil filter, no fuel cam wear, etc. Who knows. If the new motor makes the same sound I'll be sure it's the pump business. The frustrating thing to me is, I might not get to crank it over again until 8 May, unless I can do it Monday. Awful schedule. Detonation, I don't think that's it. I'm no engine designer, but that combustion chamber is a screwball design. It's got a ton of surface area, weird pockets, far too many sharp edges inside, the bores are round of course but the head chamber is not and overlaps the block top, etc. Weird. I bet all sorts of things go on in there. But when I was playing with ignition advance timing, I definitely got it to knock with far too much advance, and it NEVER MADE A SOUND. The engine "sounded funny" out the tailpipe, power was way off, and I did hear what was probably the knocking sound, twice maybe, but not like any other engine I've ever heard, ever. It wasn't sharp at all, more like tapping a large clay pot with a stick, and not the 'marble in a beer can' sound that the 232 makes. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://list.amc-list.com/pipermail/amc-list-amc-list.com/attachments/20100421/6b1f5276/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ AMC-list mailing list AMC-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://list.amc-list.com/listinfo.cgi/amc-list-amc-list.com