motor tika knock

[grantjp]

OK its not a festiva but it is a Mazda 1.6 in a protege
Last winter my bro got a 95 Mazda protege Perty good shape to.
Well one day he comes to work and the car is tik tik knocking BaD he said the oil was low so he added a few quarts , well after I looked and drained he added FOUR quarts to many and drove it 20 miles like that. So I got the level right but it never hushed. He stopped driving it and we bought the first festiva.
So today I bought it for 200 bucks not sure where to start, I think I'm gonna get a book, tear it down and find the cause.
Any one got any tips?

[william]

Hydraulic lash adjusters.
They may need a good cleaning or replaced. I've had luck in the past running sea foam right before an oil change, and also using stp with zdp at ever oil change.
My 1.6 Capri engine was noisy at start up and it's now very quiet.

[rmoltis]

so the thing that happens when you overfill your oil.
the crankshaft rotates in and out of the fluid "whipping" air bubbles into the oil until the point it becomes foam like.
and as we all know air is compressible and the oil not so much.

so the oil reacts to pressure by moving through all the oil lines.
whereas the foam oil with air in it. the air gets compressed and has a hard time being pumped through the oil lines.
which can lead to oil starvation in many different locations.

i would be inclined to assume that anywhere the oil was supposed to go,
was probably starved for oil for a good amount of time under whatever driving conditions your friend likes to drive his car like.

it could be hla's
it could be bearings down on the bottom end.
or other numerous things.

try and pinpoint where this knock is emanating from specifically then work from there.

[grantjp]

I believe and hope top end.
ima try the hla s

[htchbck]

Also, to add to rmoltis's very well worded description, when you do start getting that foam circulated through the engine, the HLAs don't perform very well at all. Like he said, air is very compressible, and the HLAs use the oil pressure to keep pumped up. When they get fed air, they get really mushy really quick. Hopefully there was no major damage done to the motor. But I'm with you, start in the top end, unless you can audibly isolate the knocking sound to somewhere lower down in the motor.

[milehighbear]

Try this. Buy a bottle of seafoam oil additive. Put in 6 ozs and drive the car around for about 30-40 minutes and engine is at normal hot. Then take and drain oil, put in new oil and new filter, add the other 6 inches of seafoam and just drive the car normal. See what happens. It should do the trick. Once it stocks ticking, add seafoam to every other oil change. This will keep engine sludge free and clean lifters and oil ports. It worked for me and my festiva has 205,500 miles on it and I did this 5 months ago and even in cold weather it does not tick any longer. Good luck.

[rmoltis]

if it does turn out to be lash adjusters they are pretty dang cheap if you replace yourself.
is this sound like a little sewing machine with little constant ticking sounds that arent loud but are constant

or is it more like a a low pitch rhythmic knock maybe like a hammer is tapping on something?

[grantjp]

Loud like hammers and now it squels a lil.
I tried a bottle of top treat fast flush but no results, did oil change and filter, and now she won't even idle.
I got a book, internet, and you guys, I'm diggin in

[grantjp]

I got a 1.5 dohc on my hands, the lifters are not hydraulic but springs.
Im pulling the head now

[rmoltis]

the valve springs arent lifters?
they should either be lash type or hydraulic type lifters?

as far as i know these are the only kinds?

[grantjp]

They are springs under the the caps.
I got the head off and nothing I cannot see any problems.
I must go deeper

[rmoltis]

Double post sorry. See below.

[rmoltis]

Have you ever seen what lifters tend to look like?

I'll use my car with a different engine but same idea for an example.

Here is what it looks with the valve cover removed.


Now where the springs sit, above them and the caps.
The lifter sits inside the rocker arms and contacts the top of each valve.


Here are the rocker arm assemblies.
You can see in the top set on the top side the little round things.
They are the lifters.
In the bottom set they are on the bottom part.



Here is a picture of the lifters removed from their bores.
Not all lifters look the same but they operate under basically the same principles.


The hydraulic ones like in the pictures^ automatically adjust from oil filling them.
Vs.
The lash adjusters that need to me manually adjusted.


Press on each one above the springs. And if any of them have any slack they will need to be adjusted or replaced.

[rmoltis]

poking around the web your lifters should look something like these.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mazda-Protege-Ford-Mercury-Kia-Rio-Sephia-1-6L-1-8L-2-0L-Lash-Adjuster-Lifter-FS-/370886934479

not sure if those are the exact ones,
but from what ive seen they will look similar to them,
help you identify what they are.

[grantjp]

Thanks yes I know the diff but what I stated was simply that they weren't hydraulic, they are just springs. All of them seem to be fine. I have not taken them all out and measured but all seem to have same pressure. Also I have the 1.5 double over head cam if that maters.
I'm gonna try pull in the pan to get to my crank and check the bearings and journals.
Due to the fact I did hear it starting to sequel randomly while knocking