lifters taping

[korey_gunn]

Hi all,
I have a 89 festiva L4 - 1.3L vin H 1295cc - MFI . Sometimes the lifters tap,sometimes severly with a power loss. It has new oil and is full, plenty of water. New radiator,new thermostat,new intake gaskets. It acts like it's getting hot, temp reads ok.
Mabey it's loosing oil pressure? No warning lights. HELP!
Thanks everyone....Korey:puke:

[bravekozak]

You may have a bad lifter(s).
You have to listen to hear exactly which one is making the tapping sound.
I would remove the valve cover and take a peek.
Does anyone know how bad the oil splash is with the engine running?

[korey_gunn]

Well its all of the lifters, when it happens....I'm guessing lack of oil pressure?

[blkfordsedan]

Shouldn't an '89 be carb'd and have a mechanical cam ?. If so, it would be a valve lash issue and just adjust the valves.

[Pu241]

Shouldn't an '89 be carb'd and have a mechanical cam ?. If so, it would be a valve lash issue and just adjust the valves.

Not if its ATX!

[htchbck]

My '88LX carbed ATX had some ticking from the valves this morning but it went away after a few minutes.

[korey_gunn]

It's fuel injected...and the lifters only sometimes tap. I'm told that if it were a valve lash issue it would be constant. Yet I'm still clueless!
Thanks for your help!

[kartracer46]

Well it probably needs an oil pan gasket anyway, so you could pull the pan and see if the screen on the pick up tube is partially plugged with small pieces of sludge and carbon deposits. If not you can make a tee off the oil pressure sending unit and attach a mechanical oil pressure guage and see what oil psi it is carrying. It's a place to start.

[WmWatt]

Try some chemical additive to clean things up. Could do a comression test to see if there is pressure leakage. Also a vacuum guage will give some indication of bent or sticky valves. See the permanent ("sticky") article on vaccum guage diagnosis at the top of this forum.

[skeeters_keeper]

I would recommend checking the compression as well, but if thats not practical, try some seafoam in the oil. I'm not a big fan of adding chemicals to the crank case, but sometimes its worth the risk (the risk I see in chemicals is causing an oil leak to get worse). In this case thats probably what I would do, to see if it would free up any gunk in the lifters or oil system.

[getnpsi]

I switched to a 5w-20 motorcraft oil and my ticking problems went away before i sold the car. However I read that its also under $100 to replace all the lifters and buy all new gaskets. I'd try the thinner oil change first.

[blkfordsedan]

Not if its ATX!

details, details.................

[blkfordsedan]

It's fuel injected...and the lifters only sometimes tap. I'm told that if it were a valve lash issue it would be constant. Yet I'm still clueless!
Thanks for your help!

Yes, mechanical will tap until the engine warms up and everything expands, they they will usually quiet down (if adjusted properly). Worst case you have to put new HLA's in it (or at least a few) They're fairly cheap & easy to replace.

[iceracerdude]

To tell which HLA's need to be replaced, you need to remove the valve cover.
Then you'd rotate the crank with your hands (if you remove the spark plugs first or you're superman) or you can put a socket wrench on the crank bolt. I remove the spark plugs and rotate the cam with a gear wrench.
You'd rotate the cam so that when a valve is completely closed you can push down on the top of a rocker at that valve, there should be no play in the hla. If there's play, that's a noisy one. The reason the noise eventually goes away is that the offending hla eventually "pumps up" with oil. That's your warning sign it's not holding it's seal and will eventually get to the point where it won't pump up at all. Tick Tick Tick. If you decide to replace just a few, at least get one or two spares

[roycehof]

O.K. I recently went through this same scare with my Festiva. The exhaust had been noisy for about a month so I don't know how long this was happening - but one day I was coming back from Washington on 295 and traffic was backed-up so while I was sitting there I started to hear a noise and discovered it was coming from my engine. I stopped and discovered I was about 3/4 quart of oil low. So I went in Walmart and got a bottle of 20w50 and put it in. Still noisey - with loss of power. Got home - Next morning tappity tap (like it does occasionally when it sits and then the serious noises with loss of power. I got some Seafoam from NAPA and put about 6 oz in the oil and about the same in the gas (saved about a third of the can). The car was back to normal in about 10 to 15 miles of driving. After about a day, the noises returned. I poured the rest in the oil figuring what do I have to lose. Got better but then about 10 miles later - all the lifters were being noisey. I spun off the oil filter and put another one on. Problem solved. I think the crap from the engine clogged the filter (that sucker was heavy and had only been on the car for about 2.5K miles). Drove it about another 150 miles and did another oil change (The oil was absolutely filthy). It now runs better than it had in a long time and no more noises. I'm sure the HLA's still aren't perfect but at least it is behaving normally again. Try the Seafoam, but be ready to loosen up a ton of old crap and be ready (have a new filter with you) to change a filter if you detect a loss of oil pressure (I was lucky to have one with me). BTW, the light never came on but I open the oil cap and it wasn't dripping with oil like it usually does - so don't think the light will let you know if you have low pressure (it won't).
Good Luck - sure beat pulling the cam and rockers out and cleaning the HLAs.