Do you mean the crankshaft position sensor in the distributor? That was another thought I had, a while ago one of the cap bolts broke off and I had to drill it out and pit in a new bolt wit a nut on it. I was thinking this may have allowed it more play then it should have or maybe the nut came loose, I guess I should have checked that first! Could this also explain the knock or do I have two seperate problems?

 

Crank position sensor is in the bellhousing, on the passenger side. Very cleverly concealed.

The cam position sensor is in the distributor.

 

Gotcha! How hard is that going to be to get to?

 

I don't know.... I haven't even SEEN mine...... And I had the top half of the motor apart at one point.

 

It's right by the tranny dipstick tube behind the right side head. Mine also had all kinds of rust and shavings on the end of it. I used a round wire brush and compressed air to clean the teeth of the flywheel before I put the new one in. Maybe, maybe not, worth a shot anyway.

 

Ya I just went and looked at my spare engine to see where it was, looks like you have to be a contortionist to get to it in the truck, but like you said it's worth a try

 

It does suck getting to it. A small mirror will help.

 

I got my hand in there to see if it felt like anything was hitting the Crank position sensor but couldnt feel anything so I found a long curved aluminum tent pole and got that down in there and onto it with the engine running and the noise was pretty loud with my ear against the pole, not enough to convince me 100% thats what is causing the noise (still suspect #8 rod bearing) but enough to convince me to pull it out and see what it looks like, if all looks good there I will be probably be dropping the oil pan on saturday

 

Pulled the crank sensor this evening and it looks fine, looks like some scuff marks on the plastic but the noise I'm hearing is metal on metal. I really hate pulling the oil pan in this truck, took me like two hours last time to get it worked out of there, but I guess it's a necessary evil if I want to save this engine

 

There were no marks on my crank sensor either. And it sounded like metal on metal. Oh well, too bad it can't be something simple right.