hi, this was my buddies wife's rig, it developed a horrible knocking sound so the took it to a honda dealer i believe and they told him it dropped a valve in the #6 cylinder and would cost in the neighborhood of $3000 to fix it. it sat for a while and now belongs to me, due to him not wanting it to sit in his yard any longer. he said it still ran, just made a horrible noise. i tore the top end off the engine w/o trying to start it first, know im kicking myself. anyway i cant find anything wrong with the engine, cylinders and pistons look good, turns nice felt like it had good compression while turning the engine over by hand valves and cams look great. there was definatly something in the #6 cylinder cause there is some marring on the head around the valves, but there was no spark plug in this cylinder when i started and am wondering if its possible that the plug broke and kicked around inside there till it was small enough to be expelled out the exhaust? i want to put it back together now but was wondering if there was anything that i should replace being its tore down this far anyway or anything else i should check that could produce that noise. also i did drain the oil and then strained it through a small screen but was clean didn't find anything. also any recommended rebuild kits for the top end would be great, i dont want to pull the motor or tear into the bottom end if i dont have to. thank you so much for your time and any insight you may have. also this pic is of the cylinder head i mentioned previously.

 

My engine has a single cam over each head, that makes it a sohc? Correct??? I'm a noobie to these foreign engines.

 

if there is an easier way to upload photos, please feel free to take me to school.

 

hey, i totally screwed up, i bought a gasket set for a 92-95 3.2 sohc thinking my trooper was a 93. turns out its a 96, will the gaskets still fit, its just a head gasket set. thanks for any info.

 

It is a SOHC. If I am not mistaken there may be some slight differences in the parts. I know that most things run 92-95 (I have a 94. 256000 mi). I just lost the top end of my motor a few days ago and the advice I received was drop in a new motor. Found one online for about 1400. Mechanic has it listed at 10-12 hrs for the job (bout 600.00). If you have high miles, drop a motor in it and save yourself the headache.