I suspect that might the case, I've got a noisy tappet & as soon as I add ATF to the oil it's quiet as mouse, do an oil change & couple of hundred miles later the noise is back.
Sounds obvious now doesn't it? Time to find some tappets I think. Hmm half tempted to look at other camshafts while I'm at it. Any suggestions on a Cam that'll give a little more oomph but keep things sensible and economical as a daily?
If the car is still fairly new (to you) then I'd make sure you're happy with the reliability before spending money on a new cam and tappets. Is it tapping all the time now, or just when it's cold. If the tappet is really gunked up, there's no guarantee that ATF will clear it. You can take them apart and clean them out though.
Hi Mike Yeah back all the time now. Always from the same end of the rocker cover and it does get a little quieter every now and then but never really goes completely quiet. Agreed though but bar these silly engine issues it's a solid motor. Not much to go wrong I guess.
Well I've just about had a gut full of this one. Time to sit down, deep breath and set myself for all the work ahead. Damn nuisance as it runs and pulls quite well. I'm going to check the compression values before I start ripping the top of the engine to pieces. Need to sort the dodgy sump bolt, and retro fit power steering bits as I'd originally planned too.
why the stress about the compression tests? if it pulls well and no smoke , then a new set of tappets is a minor job really ..its not major surgery
true, but i think I'm becoming a car geek and need to know how healthy she is. I want to be 100% sure all is well before really diving in. If there's more amiss inside there then it would be easier, cheaper and far quicker for me to to swap the whole lump to be honest.
Right. Day off at last. Time to sort the sump pan, may pull it again too. Gonna have a look under the rocker cover too. Got some spare gaskets. Bit of an odd one last night. It's been sounding pretty awful this last week. Had a fair old treck to do last night so I poured a dollop of oil in. Just half a cup. 5 -10 miles down the road she was quiet as a mouse although it did start ticking again later. Update later
well i've just pulled the rocker cover to a right old mess. Unbelievable how much crud and black crap is in there. Any suggestions on how to best clean it? I've dumped the oil. Just got to get in there I suppose.
Mop up as much as you can with clean paper towels or lint free cloth, then I'd use petrol/carb cleaner/other to wash the residue down the oil returns in the head. If you drop the sump it should all drop straight out into a drain tray underneath. After that I'd suggest you run some engine flush through it. You probably want to have a look at the tappets while the cam cover is off. Any of them seem soft to push?
Better. tried squeezing the tappets and found one that was a little spongey and another that I could squeeze a couple of mm. Gonna change the lot ASAP. More cleaning first though. Thankfully the cam lobes and everything else in there looks ok, well nothing obvious anyway.
Quick query! Would you expecta gunked engine to lose performance as quickly as I'm experiencing here? Friday when it was at its noisiest was definately down on power. After the weekends cleaning activities (Still need to flush it properly) and running some fresher oil (Very weak ATF mix at the mo) it's running sweet as a nut. Very quiet, smooth and power's bak up to boot.
a really noisey tappet would mean the valves arent opening as they should , so yeah it could slow it up a bit id not really expect a average tappety engine to be way down on power though
Agreed. Couldn't get my head round it. It sounded awful on Friday, a right old bag of nails but what I cant get my head around is how it seems to deteriorate so quickly.
have you done all the service parts too? chances are if they left the oil changes then it never got fuel filters n plugs n stuff so did you put new tappets in ?
Not done the tappets yet as I want to be sure its clean first. This weekend I hope. All other service parts are pretty new. One advantage of LPG is it quickly exposes any weakness in the ignition system and it's currently running very nicely. So they're not the issue. looks like another weekend rolling roundon the floor. Engine flush, more cleaning (if necessary) and new tappets to go in. Got to admit though I'm beginning to wonder if there's more going on here.
Quick little update. Started tapping again on the way home. By the time I did the 10 miles it was tapping quite well. What did catchh my attention was how lumpy and chuggy the engine became at idle. Definately more than just a single tap going on too.
Damn parts never turned up, so that's screwed changing it all up this weekend. Strangest behaviour at the moment though. When starting she's quiet befoire the dreaded ticks arrive. Chuggy at idle too. Sticky valve perhaps?
