Best way to stop ticking lifters?

    Hi all, i've got a fairly noisy ticking coming from one side of my engine. It is linked to RPM and sometimes disappears when the engine warms up but since my last oil change (put in a heavier weight, can't remember exactly what it was) it's there pretty much all the time. The car was using a fair bit of oil and with the heavier oil it's not using any so I don't want to swap back to lighter oil.


    From research i've done it seems to be a hydraulic valve lifter that's making the racket and i've also read that you can use oil treatments to solve the problem. The products are all american and I can't find them over here, does anyone have any recommendations on UK products? Any other advice would be good.


    Cheers, Nick

    The Oil adative;-)


    I had some amazing results with some older cars that I have sold, prior to ordering I spoke with the UK supplier who assured me that it can even stop small oil leaks:roll: Yeah right but guess what IT DID, on top of quitening down most small noises caused by normal wear.


    I would not hesitate to use it again;-)

    Those who risk nothing,achieve nothing,become nothing.

    Zitat von NickF;60788

    Hi all, i've got a fairly noisy ticking coming from one side of my engine. It is linked to RPM and sometimes disappears when the engine warms up but since my last oil change (put in a heavier weight, can't remember exactly what it was) it's there pretty much all the time. The car was using a fair bit of oil and with the heavier oil it's not using any so I don't want to swap back to lighter oil.....


    Cheers, Nick



    If the noise is worse with a heavy guage oil, it implies that the hydraulic tappets are probably dirty rather than worn. You would probably require a flush through with a cleaning additive, rather than one, which by the sound of it may contain thickeners.


    (BTW: Usually now, synthetic oils contain additives which swell rubber gaskets to renew elasticity and help stop leaks. This is because synthetic oils are are particulary good a cleaning out old gunk from engines and exposing weak seals.)


    You don't say what oils you have been running in your car, but I think something like Mobil-1 would be a good choice. Also, you may want to check that the oil spray bars have not worked loose and are starving the tappets of oil (known problem of M70 engine).



    Everything mentioned below you get from a good synthetic oil without paying £138 per bottle!


    "....Tru-Blu Oil Stabilizer is quite different from anything else on the market. Because it is a 100% petroleum product utilising cutting edge molecular technology, it is totally compatible with all synthetic and mineral based oils on the market (except vegetable oil) and is therefore safe to use in your engine. Oil Stabilizer is a High Viscosity Index oil supplement, designed to be mixed with your normal oil to significantly improve your oil's ability to maintain (stabilise) the viscosity index (operating fluidity characteristics), as intended by the oil manufacturer. Oil Stabilizer blends fully with your normal oil and once blended will not separate under any circumstances. At the recommended rate, it will not change the S.A.E. class or viscosity rating (thickness) of your normal oil. "Oil Stabilizer" contains no chemical additives which could adversely react with the chemical additive packages already in commonly used motor oils.
    Does it have special properties?
    The special properties of Tru-Blu Oil Stabilizer are the result of altering the petroleum molecule during blending. This process creates a unique product with the ability to withstand extreme pressures and heat. When mixed with your normal oil at the recommended rate, Oil Stabilizer dramatically improves the ability of your normal motor oil to remain more constant, resisting the normal viscosity breakdown of your oil as the oil becomes hot under pressure in your engine. By stabilising and therefore preventing the oil from becoming more fluid (watery) under operating conditions, the oil therefore better maintains its original viscosity (thickness) and therefore its ability to cling to and better lubricate surfaces and moving parts than otherwise would be the case...."

    Zitat von arnie;60802

    Also, you may want to check that the oil spray bars have not worked loose and are starving the tappets of oil (known problem of M70 engine).



    Arnie not that I have a problem at the moment but as a 850 owner I am always collecting info so tell me more:hmmmm:

    :driving2:Its been a year since I sold her and I still miss her.......





    Lloyd

    There are probably many posts on the forum already on this subject, but to describe it briefly:

    The oil spray-bars (item 17) on top of the cams are fed through banjo-bolts (item 18. ). After a while these bolts have a tendancy to work loose, thereby reducing or at worst, cutting off, the oil supply. I think that the bolts cannot unscrew completely as they eventually touch the cam covers, but the damage is done to the cam-shafts, cam-followers and tappets due to oil stavation. Later engines used Loctite on the bolts, but reports exist of this not being too effective.

    The best fix is to use drilled-head bolts with stainless-steel lock wire.

    Zitat von stevep840;60807

    ARNIE

    I TYPE IN BIG LETTERS SO THAT YOU MAY WELL SEE BETTER:laugh::laugh:

    £138 is for a Box ie Trade, individually £17+ p+p;-)




    Steve,

    apologies for the mis-information.



    However, using a cheap oil will result in your engine looking like this and these type of varnish deposits could be the cause of sticky tappets. A run-through with a flushing oil may help.




    An actual M70 engine (not mine!!)


    Here's the link to the rest (some interesting pictures):
    http://bmwe32.masscom.net/sean…buildM70/M70rebuild_1.htm

    Tunap has an engine cleaning product out that you add just prior to changing the oil.
    Nut sure in you add it, run the engine warm and then drain it, ot if you can ad it X amount of km/miles before the oilchange.

    I plan to use this before my next oil change.

    And I only use Castrol oil as per BMW's spec.

    Tunap product
    http://www.tunap.com/en/ranges/automotive/products/p327.html

    -Egil (thats my name)

    1990 850IA Hartge SC
    2012 M550d Touring

    If I misspelled a word it's because I'm Norwegian, so bear with me.

    Thanks for all your replies chaps. I think I'll try the TruBlu stuff SteveP suggests. I had my oil changed by a garage so I get some form of stamp in my service book but I think the guy used some semi-synthetic ?W50 of some sort.


    Do you think Mobil1 0W40 will work OK with my car? As mentioned it used to use oil (there was no blue exhaust smoke so I don't know where it was going) and it's done 145,000 miles, I don't want to keep on having to top it up all the time.

    Zitat von NickF;60838

    Thanks for all your replies chaps. I think I'll try the TruBlu stuff SteveP suggests. I had my oil changed by a garage so I get some form of stamp in my service book but I think the guy used some semi-synthetic ?W50 of some sort.


    Do you think Mobil1 0W40 will work OK with my car? As mentioned it used to use oil (there was no blue exhaust smoke so I don't know where it was going) and it's done 145,000 miles, I don't want to keep on having to top it up all the time.



    Nick ,I'm no expert but when I tried using Oil that starts with 0 that is when the oil consumption started, engines with greater milages need looking after differently to the low mileage highly tuned stuff, if your using some Trublu then it needs to be added with the engine running & the oil level down 1litre to take the trublu BTW I use 10/40 Now;-)

    Those who risk nothing,achieve nothing,become nothing.

    Zitat von stevep840;60840

    Nick ,I'm no expert but when I tried using Oil that starts with 0 that is when the oil consumption started, engines with greater milages need looking after differently to the low mileage highly tuned stuff, if your using some Trublu then it needs to be added with the engine running & the oil level down 1litre to take the trublu BTW I use 10/40 Now;-)




    I agree, a 0W oil is too thin for our "old" engines.
    I'd use a 5W og a 10W synthetic oil.

    On my old track e36 I was running synthetic 10W-60 racing oil to kill the valve ticking.

    -Egil (thats my name)

    1990 850IA Hartge SC
    2012 M550d Touring

    If I misspelled a word it's because I'm Norwegian, so bear with me.

    The 0W rating means that the oil should typically have a lower viscosity at 40C than a 10W or 15W. This should help the hydraulic tappets to fill. However, Mobile 0W-40 actually has a higher viscosity at low temperature than some 10W oils.




    Mobil-1 oils..........BMW.......(Hi-Mileage)..(Hi-Mileage)
    cST..................OW-40.........10W-30......10W-40.........15W-50
    Visc at 40C..........78.3............78..............98...................131
    Visc at 100C.........14..............12..............14.....................18
    Visc Index............186...........145.............156...................154
    HTHS...................3.7...........3.66............4.06.................4.50


    BMW Min spec for High-Temp, High-Shear (HTHS) is 3.5



    Mobil-1 oils (US)
    cST...................5W-30.........10W-30
    Visc at 40C.............65.............62
    Visc at 100C...........11.............10
    Visc index.............169............147
    HTHS....................3.1............3.14




    ...........................BMW.............BMW............BMW
    Castrol oils...........Edge.........Edge Sport....Edge(RS)......Edge Sport
    cST....................OW-30........0W-40.........10W-60.........10W-60
    Visc at 40C............72...............75.7............ 161 .............157
    Visc at 100C..........12...............12.8............. 24.4 ............ 22.2
    Visc Index............167...............171..............179...............164
    HTHS....................?...................?.................?..................?




    The Viscosity index is representative of the quality of the base synthetic oil. The higher, the better.

    Wanted to dredge up this old thread to let you know what the cause of my ticking was. Turns out that my banjo bolts were loose on one bank and a pair of cams lobes had been badly starved of oil. The cam lobes were quite badly worn but I didn't fancy replacing the can shaft so I just changed the rockers and lifters for the bad cam lobes, put it all back together and it runs like a sewing machine :cool:. Some of you may have seen my post on Bimmerforums but in case you haven't here's some ramblings about what I did.....



    So I used the infamous Sean750 write up as my start point (http://bmwe32.masscom.net/) and while it was useful it is very e32 specific and a couple of the steps were very different for our [COLOR=blue ! important][FONT=&quot][COLOR=blue ! important][FONT=&quot]cars[/FONT][/FONT][/COLOR][/COLOR].


    First thing I did was unplug the two fuel pump fuses and turn the car over to remove some of the fuel pressure, I then disconnected both batteries.


    The engine harness is a PITA, Sean tells you to disconnect the injectors and DKs (easy) and unbolt the CPS and Cylinder ID connectors (fairly easy) then lift the harness up. Sadly it's not that easy on an e31. On the US passenger side the harness is connected to the coil plus the OBC connector and what I think are the fuel tank breather lines on the US passenger side. The US drivers side is connected to the coil, alternator and something scary under the engine (i think it's the oil level sensor plus something else). I disconnected everything from the US passenger side, but left the other side connected. This gave me enough room to move stuff around but meant the harness was a constant PITA throughout the process, although I still think I’d leave the driver’s side connected if I did it again.


    You also don’t need to remove the expansion tank and fan, although it gives you much better access for cleaning but it means you have to bleed the dratted [COLOR=blue ! important][FONT=&quot][COLOR=blue ! important][FONT=&quot]cooling [/FONT][COLOR=blue ! important][FONT=&quot]system[/FONT][/COLOR][/FONT][/COLOR][/COLOR] again!!!!
    Remove the US passenger side intake first (that’s the intake that serves the driver’s side bank). If you do the other one (like I did) you can’t remove it as the metal fuel line blocks the intake. You can do it with a large amount of messing about but you’ll trash the threads on the IM gasket. I found removing the intakes surprisingly easy. Putting them back on….not so much.


    I replaced all of the gaskets, like valve covers, grommet for VCV, etc… anything rubber basically. The valve cover gaskets are expensive but mine were shot. Also, note down all the bits and bobs that are attached the valve covers (like the manifold support brackets) as it’s not that obvious how they all go back together.


    Replacing the rockers and lifters was fairly easy with the right tool. I have heard you can’t get these in the US and people have resorted to making their own. Anyone can borrow mine for the cost of postage. I did **** myself when compressing the valve as I was terrified that it would drop into the cylinder. I think I was just being paranoid though. The difficult bit was getting the rockers back into place which was very fiddly. The little cap that sits on top of the spring kept moving and wouldn’t do what it was told. I was glad I only had two rockers to do, I’d think a valve stem seal job would be a nightmare.


    I replaced all of the fuel lines which required around 2.2m of line and around 20 clips. I bought this from BMW at great expense but other fuel line I’ve used has been total rubbish so I wouldn’t get it anywhere else. I also needed to replace the 8mm fuel lines that go into the DKs (fuel tank breathers?) as they were so brittle that they just snapped off.


    I thoroughly cleaned the oil spray bars and banjos and loctited those bad boys down.


    I also replaced the water temperature sensor that was a gigantic PITA!!!!! You need a deep 19mm socket to remove, but the difficult bit is attaching the clip back to the plug. Even with the IMs off it was like keyhole surgery. I ended tying the clip to a pair of long nosed pliers, half clipping the clip onto the plug then trying to fix it on. It must have taken me 2 hours....


    Putting everything back together was time consuming but not that difficult.


    The first IM is easy (again, do the US passenger side first), but the second IM appears to be close to impossible (at least for me) without the proper tools. I suggest buying new nuts and a magnetic pick up tool. If you drop one into the V you can see them with a torch if they are bright and shiny new ones. I used the flexible extension (referenced above) and a long 1/4” wobble extension. One tool worked well for some nuts and the other for other nuts. I found a swivel and lots of extensions didn’t work well for me. Whatever you do use 1/4” drive stuff as even 3/8” is too wide and will make your life difficult.


    The injector clips gave me a few headaches but then I worked out that you could half put the clips on prior to plugging them onto the injectors, then you could just snap them into place. I didn’t lose any down the V but I would buy a few spares just in case.

    Nick,


    just curious, what is the age and mileage of your car?


    I've had the replacement, drilled banjo bolts for my car, now for a coupld of years but haven't managed to get round to doing the work yet, but I guess this story serves as a timely reminder.

    It's a 1991 with 145k miles. Barely run in....


    The job is a lot of work so make sure you put aside enough time. It probably took me 18 hours but I was making it up as I went along and I wasted a lot of time wrestling with the wrong tools.


    It's great fun though, go for it.

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