Anyone replaced their HLA?

[yvanlavoie20]

noise solution...cheap

i repair many 1.3 with a cheap solution :lol:
add 2 qt of auto transmission fluid in your crank case, run with your car for about 20-30 Miles at high rpm(at least 5000 rpm) but with LIGHT throttle (do not put pedal to the metal) change your oil , then make a 10-20 Miles trip wide open throttle, change your oil and filter. on some very dirty hla (and rocker shaft) it need 2 or 3 of this treatment. i repair at least 15 or 16 1.3 with this method. good luck

[darkdan]

Well the engine has been put through 2 auto-rx cleaning and rinse phases.

Which did help the problem until winter.

What oil passages supply the HLA? The little tiny hole on top of the rocker arm is clean (oil was shot out of it at 100 mph while installing the new ones). I didn't remove the rocker arms from the shaft or even look at the shaft.

I'm thinking somehow the new HLA aren't getting oil to them yet. Which I wasn't sure if this is a normal thing with new HLA or not.

ATF doesn't really do too much. It has a huge amount of disperants, but very little detergents.

Dispersants are what hold stuff in suspension, detergents clean things up and put it into suspension. While it may work there are better solutions. This is one of the few times when the 5 minute solvent flush might help or even switching to a higher detergent oil (diesel rated oils).

But if it works, it works. When I want a clean engine I use auto-rx.

[yvanlavoie20]

try it

try this little trick before talking about work or not :evil:

[FB71]

the center cam journal is pressure fed off the pump. It has holes in the top which line up with holes in the rocker shafts. the rocker shafts are hollow, and carry oil to the rockers/hla's and cam journals at either end. These heads (as I'm sure you know) are famous for sludging up, which includes the inside of the rails. Check those, they may be plugged, especially if you've been running detergent through the engine. Since it can't penetrate the crap in the rails, they'll just collect anything in suspension.

[darkdan]

I think tomorrow I'll just remove the rails and see if I can manually clean them.

If auto-rx didn't clean it then I think the problem isn't going to go away short of some carb cleaner.

auto-rx is made from organic esters and will dissolve and suspend sludge (not varnish) and carbon. If it's dirty enough in there where 6500 miles of auto-rx didn't help then it's time they get removed.

yvan, I didn't say your way didn't work. I just said I thought there were better ways. Adding ATF to the crankcase is an old method. I believe it would work better in conjunction with something that either has some form of solvency or detergency.

[FB71]

get ready to knock out the freezeplugs and galley brush them clean. you may even need to pound a rod through first...

[Pgh5spd]

Oil route to lash adjusters

Dan,
I just went down to the basement and pulled a rocker arm shaft off of a spare motor, and it's as I expected. There are 5 bolts holding the shaft down, right? OK, right beside the center bolt there's a pretty large hole at the bottom of the shaft, and there's a matching hole in the boss in the head that holds the shaft. That's where the oil is delivered to the shaft. Now, at each rocker arm there's a small hole in the shaft, aimed at the arm side, and on each rocker arm there's a small hole in the side opposite the arm. That's where the oil delivery passage was drilled almost clean thru the arm. Another hole is drilled up to meet that hole from the cavity where the lash adjuster fits.

So, the oil comes up thru the hole in the boss, thru the rocker arm shaft and thru each of the 4 holes in the shaft to the rocker arms, thru that little hole and down to the lash adjuster.

Now the predictions. If your motor sounds way worse than before, I bet you have the shaft 180 degrees out of orientation to the rocker arms. If you can see the large hole in the shaft beside the center bolt, you are not getting any oil to any of the adjusters at all. But if the orientation is OK, and you're sure each assembly is on the same side of the motor it was on originally, then I expect you have so much varnish in the rocker arms that you're not getting oil to the adjusters, or you knocked some varnish loose in the process of changing the adjusters and that's what's causing the problem. It ought to be easy to take the shaft assemblies off again, taking care that each arm goes back to the position it came from to begin with, and clean each arm with a wire. But, since that passage is fairly long & narrow diameter, it might be an idea to talk with a machine shop first for some advice. I can also imagine that if you ran a wire into the passage you might jam enough varnish to form a plug that you'd never get out. Some special solvent might be better, and guys at a good machine shop should have the experience to give good advice there.

Please post your progress on this! I like Yvan's solution, and was planning to try it on mine if things got worse, but seeing how easy it is to take a rocker arm shaft off, this might offer an alternate solution, especially if the valve cover is already off for gasket replacement etc.

John

[darkdan]

Yeah, as I was laying in bed last night I got to thinking about the oil passges.

I was thinking it worked like that. A hole in the bottom of the rod that oil was forced through.

So I'm going to say the odds are 90% chance it's upside down. =)

I get off at like 5, so I'll find out then.

[darkdan]

Yup, exhaust side was flipped. =)

But I finally got out that #3 exhaust HLA that wouldn't come out before (thanks vice grips).

Flipped it the right way. It still clicked for about 2 or 3 minutes, but then it was fine.

Two cold starts today and no clicking. So I'd say it was worth the $90.

oil passages were clean.

The sad thing is, I think my car was a lot faster with the exhaust valves flapping around as much as they wanted....maybe the noise was just a placebo effect.