Billman250

Looks like a u haul to jordanksartell is within reach for you if you can't find someone local.

zeroptzero

If you could Billman250 to repair your car for that price you might be able to save it, money well spent and see the Big Apple at the same time

MM3Kwolik

I agree. Who knows how long it's been this way though. I have a feeling the previous owner may have had the car pre-warmed to mask the symptoms when he came and checked it out. No doubt a shady situation.

Thanks for the referral.

St. Louis is about 6 hours from me. As Billman said, if you can get a U-haul trailer and borrow a buddies truck I could surely have this fixed over 1 afternoon.

Whichever you choose, good luck OP,

Slapasaurusrex

Well I'm going back to the guy who sold me the car and I'm going to try to be civil with him and hopefully he will refund me at least some of what I payed him so that I can get it all fixed, TN isn't too far and I know people with trucks and trailers and I would love to get this thing right, I just have the same concern as the previous post about how long it's been like this and if there is serious damage to the crank. I would hate to drive all the way there and drop the car off for you to take it apart and tell me it's shot and still have to pay you and for all the time and rentals. Is there any way to know for sure if it is too far gone? Or still fixable?

jkelley

I understand wanting to jump into your dream car and scrounging for the cash, and I feel for you. I did the same thing when I bought my first AP1 and just got lucky that the car didn't have ANY issues for 2 years.

You ALWAYS want to make sure when checking out a car that the guy doesn't warm it up for you. If I'm going to look at a car I ALWAYS go see it in the morning and ask them not to start the car for ~8 hours before I get them. I've actually popped the hood and felt a warm engine before even after explicitly asking and have straight walked and said "thanks for wasting my time." A lot of issues can be masked warm.

+1 on jordan or billman doing the repair for you. They are extremely reasonably priced, truly amazing mechanics that know all year S2000's like the back of their hand, and are excellent and honest diagnosticians.

Slapasaurusrex

Yeah unfortuneatly the guy seemed really genuine and the car looked perfect and everything was in great shape. Really it's on me for not checking for a warm engine. But I think he ran it for about 5 minutes before I got there and that was enough to do it. I just really hope this guy is reasonable and doesn't make a big deal out of it and realizes I caught him and he doesn't make this harder than it needs to be.

MM3Kwolik

Good luck and keep me posted. There's no REAL way of telling what the damage is without pulling the oil pan and the rod cap with the spun bearing. Chances are pretty good that it is fixable though due to the fact that the sound basically goes away after a couple seconds. If it didn't, then I would suspect serious damage to have been done.

Like I said, just keep me posted. I want to be able to help make this right for you if at all possible.

Billman250

If it is completely silent after the initial cold start, you stand a good chance of saving it.

If you are talking it down the road warm and do not hear it, the chances are extremely high of a quick fix.

I had one guy to my shop, he was complaining of a noise. I took it for a ride, winding it out to 8k (AP2) came back, shut it off, nothing to be found. We continued to chat 10 minutes or so. As he was leaving, I was in front of the car and heard it start. I caught the 4-6 faint knocks, and told him "hey I heard your noise you have a spun bearing."

I told him drive it gently home and park it, 40 miles. He returned the next week, 40 mile return trip, and I fixed him up. The car has been fine since, that was about a year ago.

After asking him of the cars history, I came to find the dealer cracked his oil pan, and he ran it low on oil.

He came to me a month later, after they had already replaced the oil pan. But the damage was already done.

Slapasaurusrex

Definitely will do, I'll be paying the previous owner a visit this week and I'll post a video of the sound so you guys can hear it once this weather clears (huge ice storm here in STL right now) thanks to everyone especially Billman and Jordan for helping me hopefully make this right. And if I do bring it down, Jordan could you do the valve retainer swap as well?

MM3Kwolik

Yes, I can do retainer swaps no problem. About the only thing on this car I don't do is build differentials, I leave that up to the pro Ben Herne (aka Puddydad). I've done multiple full motor tear down and rebuilds, multiple transmission rebuilds, 20-30 head builds, 30+ retainer swaps, 50+ valve adjustments, etc. etc. haha. It's like riding a bike for me, just comes naturally.