Pontiac Repair: 1996 Pontiac Sunfire 2.2

Question
Hi there Tod, I recently replaced a damaged hydrloic valve, a head gasket, and the oil pump, seal,screen,and oil pan gasket. The car ran great for two days. now it has a loud knocking sound which seems to get louder as the car gets hotter. any idea what this could be?

Answer
Hi Steve:

well it more then likely has a bad connecting rod bearing. and as it gets hotter the oil is thinner and the oil pressure drops off and the oil is no longer taking up the clearance. probably what happened is dirt got into the pan when you did the head gasket and it took out the lower end of the engine. Yes there is an oil filter but it doesn't screen out everything and also when you first start the car the oil pressure is high for a instant and it by passes he filter so any dirt grit etc that was in the pan was pushed up into the lower end of the engine. don't keep running it. if you got lucky it didn't damage the crank shaft and you can just put in a new set of bearing but usually it's pretty bad carnage when a bearing goes bad.  none the less it's going to have to come apart again. sorry for the bad news. good luck :-)