how do i know for sure if i have a rod knocking...?

[Dennis]

I had my girlfriends brother look at my car to see if I have a vacuum leak and if he could find it, since I tried and didn't find it. He looked under the hood and told me I shouldn't worry about the vacuum leak because I had a rod knocking. I've always kept plenty of oil in the car. I had a few people look at it at school yesterday and a friends dad and they said they couldn't hear anything. Is there a way I can find out for sure if I have a rod knocking without taking the engine apart... I can't hear it knocking so I don't know.

[86LXItooFAST4me]

if a rod was knocking you would hear it.

[Mike's89AccordLX]

Yeah it's very distinct. At school the other day is when I first heard a car with a knock and it was a taurus sho and man that thing sounded bad. If its knocking you will hear it for sure.

-Mike

You probably here the valves ticking and it's freaking you out. Almost every honda I have heard has a ti ti ti ti ti ti ti ti ti ti sound to it. (kinda quiet though)

[Jareds 89 LX-i]

Ever hear an old Dodge/Chrysler K-car? Or an old 4 cylinder caravan (the one with the huge blue cloud of smoke coming out the back) ?? Or even some of the old Dodge Shadows..... that's what rod knock sounds like. It's pretty loud and very distinctive, so if it was knocking you'd definitely hear it. What they may have heard were the valves ticking, which is normal if they haven't been adjusted in awile. If you don't hear anything loud though, I wouldn't worry about it.

[DanLXI88]

Well from my experience you can sometimes hear it at certain RPM. A guy was selling old Mercury for $450 bucks. Not a bad deal so my bro and me stopped and looked at it. When we got it started the timing had been advanced on it and even warm it ran at a high RPM so my bro bumped the timing down where it was supposed to be and at a certain RPM which was below the the origanal setting you would hear a slight knock knock knock. And as long as it was held at that RPM you could hear it plain as day. We called it what it was a hillbilly lemon and the owner's husband got home and said it was fine. We showed him and he said the timing was set like that when he got it.