Ticking and Down A Cylinder

[leapin]

So it was fairly cold this morning(for vancouver) about -14c. I fire up my car and its ticking loud and sounds like its down a cyl. I though it sounded like a subaru. i let it run for a few seconds suspecting a sticky lifter before i opened my door and heard the exhaust. i shut it off. Fire it up again and its running perfect. I thought it was the wierdest thing. After I thought it could have been a clogged injector. Any ideas?

[Tim]

My 89 does the same thing. I just let it run for a few minutes until oil gets to the HLAs, then it runs great. What oil are you running? Too thick could cause problems at subzero temperatures.


Regards,

Tim

[rotten]

pour a quart of atf in the engine , run it for 50-100 miles and change the oil . If you wanan go to the extreme pour a cup for kerosene in the engine prior to changin the oil and and let it idle for a few minutes .

[hotfordcat]

I use BG (Barry Grant) MOA (motor oil additive). 320,000 miles on a 91 L.

[sasquatch]

So it was fairly cold this morning(for vancouver) about -14c. I fire up my car and its ticking loud and sounds like its down a cyl. I though it sounded like a subaru. i let it run for a few seconds suspecting a sticky lifter before i opened my door and heard the exhaust. i shut it off. Fire it up again and its running perfect. I thought it was the wierdest thing. After I thought it could have been a clogged injector. Any ideas?

when i had to park mine with it in 1st gear i left it on a little bit of a hill and it put alot of stress on one of the valves and it collapsed. then when i ran it for a sec it was back to normal... but the funny thing is that i thought it sounded just like a subaru lol i was kind of mad when it stoped... it sounded so cool lol

[FB71]

pour a quart of atf in the engine , run it for 50-100 miles and change the oil . If you wanan go to the extreme pour a cup for kerosene in the engine prior to changin the oil and and let it idle for a few minutes .

Do NOT do this! ATF and Kero do not have sufficient lubricity to properly protect the bearing surfaces. This will accelerate wear. You can tell me all about how many times you've done this successfully; I've rebuilt and replaced dozens of engines because of this. Use a product intended for de-varnishing / de-sludging an engine. BG products (as mentioned) and Wynn's will work, but not my first choice. SeaFoam and Auto-Rx contain the napthas and esthers added to engine oil base stock as detergents. Basically, you're just concentrating the detergents already contained in good engine oil. Add one of these products (per instructions), drive for 100 miles, then change your oil.

However, based on your description of the problem, I would simply suspect the oil has too high a viscosity for the temperature. Switch to a 0W-30, and you shouldn't have any more issues.

[Gomez]

Man are we lucky to have a guy like FB71 on here.

I am nowhere near as knowledgable as he but am not stupid either. The best thing is that he explains why to do and why not to do something as he does in almost all of his posts. We can almost all learn something from him. There are a few others on here as well that are very knowledgable. Thank you,

[FB71]

Gomez, you are too kind, sir! I don't mean to call out 'rotten', as I know he's just trying to help. He's just passing on bad information that was given to him.

[leapin]

Yeah i figured as much. Thanks guys. I just thought it was so wierd that all i had to do was shut er down and restart. it wasnt like the engine warmed up. but since this is a strange weather pattern and its gonna warm up. im not gonna worry to much. anything below 0c in Vancouver is a rarity. btw im using 5w30 if anyone needed to know or is having this prob.

[WmWatt]

As far as I know all Festivas sold in Canada come with a block heater.
My carb'd 89 did. I use it all the time to save on gas. A half hour on the
block heater before starting makes a difference and olny costs a couple of cents in electricity.
I borrowed one of those power consumpion meters they lend on your library card here in Ottawa
and clocked the power usage of the block heater for an hour so was able to calculate
the cost of the electricity consumed. I normally try to plug in the block heater one hour before
starting the engine but even plugged in a short time helps the car start easier.

[econoaddict]

FB71, a question about the wynns product your refering to.
The wynns "oil system cleaner" devarnisher we see here says in the instructions on the bottle to make sure not to run it longer than 30 minutes at idle with the cleaner in it.

[FB71]

I was refering to Seafoam and Auto-Rx as the ones to be driven for 100 miles. Yes, Wynn's and BG have different usage requirements.