Not your average VR6 "TAP" **ITS FIXED**

[VW_chris 10]

:bonk:

 

right, ill do some back ground on the engine first. (2.9 ABV)

 

had the top end re built back end of last year, new febi timing chains, tensioners guides ect, new gen. oil seals, all the valves polished and lapped into the head, head fully de-greased and all rebuilt CORRECTLY, with a mk4 head gasket.

 

Replaced the tappets last month as they were starting to get a bit noisy, theyd been bugging me for a while but i just put them off.

 

SILENCE is bliss, untill its hot....

 

sounds like ONE lifter tapping away, ive watched my engine oil/coolant temps like a hawk the last week and it starts at 88*c (oil)

 

Should i go down the route of putting a better quality slightly thicker oil in? 10w 50 maybe? ive always used 10w 40 semi quantum replaced every 3 months. what about fully synths? (clean as f*ck internally)

 

oil pump maybe? never had the sump off, has anyone had similar issues only when hot :shrug:

 

the ******* thing is silent, and i mean silent, up untill then.....

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]81992[/ATTACH]

Edited October 4, 2015 by VW_chris

[VAG-hag 0]

Hhnmmm I've heard of noisy when cold then gets quiet before but not your way round.....

If you suspect pump I have one that's practically brand new if you want it?

[VW_chris 10]

if you could keep it till the weekend that would be good, im changing the oil this weekend, going to give the pump a check over too.

 

i know.... thats the issue i had, and now its somewhat swapped round haha :shrug:

 

common sense is telling me oil... obv as oil heats up it thins out, but with new lifters :S i dont know, id somewhat expect them to retain the oil a bit better. even the old lifters wernt as noisy as it is now when its hot...

 

its got me stumped....

[VAG-hag 0]

I certainly rate Fuchs 10/50 pro race oil wise. No probs on the pump, just let me know mate.

[Jim Bowen 1]

Worth checking exhaust manifold. I had the same thing and replaced lifters. Had heard the manifold can make a similar noise if it has a slight leak. I dismissed it but did find signs of a small blow when i dismantled engine.

[VW_chris 10]

i had a quick check when i had the inlet manifold off doing the lifters, couldnt see any carbon kicking around, or feel anything whilst it was running, ive got 2 weeks off from work as of friday, so i no doubt will spend that time under the bonnet, as i do every month....

 

i mean, ive leant against it having oil pump issues, as oil pressure is getting to every other lifter no bother, it just sounds as if one or two, are sticky. but there all new, i work at nissan and i really do see the ammount of "new" parts we get that are faulty, right pain if i end up stripping that down again... but weel see how it goes, oil change, pump check over and an oil cooler are on the list at the minute (Y)

[fla 9]

Top tensioner bolt losing priming perhaps?

[VW_chris 10]

for what it costs Jim, im half tempted to buy new exhaust gaskets/bolts/nuts, then itl completely rule that out, especially before i start digging deeper, its definatly temperature related, as it only does it when it warms up.

 

read on another thread (http://the-corrado.net/showthread.php?59268-VR6-ticking-tapping) 10w 60 oil sorted another guys very similar issue, doing the oil screwdriver on the ear trick on the rocker cover and all seems silent in there :shrug:

[VW_chris 10]

well, bit of an update on this bad lad, changed both my water pumps today, done a service and checked out the oil pump.

 

- both water pumps were shot, i knew the electric one was near enough gone, didnt know the condition of the belt driven one..... well, lets just say im glad i done it haha

 

- oil seems to have made a slight improvement, not much, allthough the cooling is much improved, after a bit of a blast, the tap comes back.

 

going to put this down to **** tappets, im going to pull the "new" ones out and take them back to euro, my old ones were tappy, but no where near as bad as the new ones, maybe the new oil will sort that out :thumbleft: can but try....

 

ill keep this updated as i spend hundreds trying to fix this issue haha, i will get to the bottom of this :thumbleft: at the end of the day, i shunned off paying £380 for genuine tappets, i payed 80 from euro.... starting to think this might be the problem, but if this turns out to be the case, ill pay the 380, next month haha

 

but for now, ill leave you with some naughty water pump shots :thumbleft:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]82001[/ATTACH]

[Jim Bowen 1]

What brand were the tappets from euro?

 

I've used INA ones but not gotten to test them yet. Although that's what i had in previous engine with the tappy noise.

[VW_chris 10]

INA rings a bell, not sure on what type they were as i pulled them out the box and put them in haha, blue box if thats any use?

 

basically, if after this weekend its still ticking after i put the old lifters back in, im just going to stump it and pay for the genuine ones, evidently i should have bought the 380 ones haha, ahhh well, live and learn i guess

[VAG-hag 0]

well, bit of an update on this bad lad, changed both my water pumps today, done a service and checked out the oil pump.

 

- both water pumps were shot, i knew the electric one was near enough gone, didnt know the condition of the belt driven one..... well, lets just say im glad i done it haha

 

- oil seems to have made a slight improvement, not much, allthough the cooling is much improved, after a bit of a blast, the tap comes back.

 

going to put this down to **** tappets, im going to pull the "new" ones out and take them back to euro, my old ones were tappy, but no where near as bad as the new ones, maybe the new oil will sort that out :thumbleft: can but try....

 

ill keep this updated as i spend hundreds trying to fix this issue haha, i will get to the bottom of this :thumbleft: at the end of the day, i shunned off paying £380 for genuine tappets, i payed 80 from euro.... starting to think this might be the problem, but if this turns out to be the case, ill pay the 380, next month haha

 

but for now, ill leave you with some naughty water pump shots :thumbleft:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]82001[/ATTACH]

 

Wow that pump is pumping nothing!!!

[VW_chris 10]

really was, i have no idea how id didnt over heat, cant get my head round it, no coolant was circulating round the system, only reason i bought both pumps was the electric one had packed up a week before, sooooo glad i bothered to do it, bit of a chew on to change it as well haha

[VW_chris 10]

UPDATE

 

well, after spending a lot of money trying to fix this problem, its not 95% fixed. im 100% positive the new tappets i bought, were dud.

 

i have played with oils, 10w 40 and 10w 60, currently running 10w 60, which it seems to like.

 

having gone back to the original lifters (bear in mind, the new lifters were in the car appx. 5k, went to germany and back, and went round the nurburgring) with no improvements, if anything getting worse, i swapped them back for the original lifters and got a refund in the process.

 

now im back with the original issue, tapping higher up in the rev range, ive bought an oil pump to replace in the coming week, my thinking being maybe its worn past its tolerance, but not yet enough to cause a serious issue, just starving the lifters a little.

[VW_chris 10]

UPDATE

 

Replaced my oil pump yesterday, however, in doing so i believe i found the issue, 2 bolts on the feed pipe for the cylinder head, were partly backed out, allowing oil to drop straight back into the sump...

 

having fixed this, the engine has quietened down A LOT. but the tapping is still there. i will get the the bottom of this, genuine hydraulic lifters next month...

[Jim 2]

They're not cheap directly from VW. According to a price list I have here they could be as much as £30 each... so £360!! Hope they don't come to that amount.

[VW_chris 10]

yeah, when i initially checked, it was around that price, im not fussed, its ran with low oil pressure for at least 3 years... which carnt have done them any good, if it needs them, itl get them

[VW_chris 10]

RIGHT, where to start, for the last week ive been spending 5+ hours on it around work, which killed me, i slept for 20 hours straight after coming off night shift. then spent the whole weekend under the bonnet.

 

ITS FIXED, the infamous vr6 "TAP" has gone.

 

ive just spent the last 3 hours in it driving just listening to how amazing it sounds. no tapping, no hesitation, no dirty smells other than raw V-Power

 

anyway, what is was...

 

i reported back a couple days ago with regards to the oil pump being a bit ropey and the feed to the cylinder head, having the bolts half backed out, which was causing a serious drop in oil pressure, why the light never came on, i dont know, it must have been just above the threshold at which it comes on.

 

that combined with sorting the wiring harness to the lambda sensor must have fixed it :cheers:

 

so for all those who have a tappy vr6, check your oil pumps! 6 bolts and inspect to fooook, i dont know what the reason was behind the bolts being backed out, they were sealed with locktite, so they wernt going anywhere (ive never been in the sump) but, that seems to be it, i think after all that time of having a poor feed, it just needed a good run to get the oil flowing in all the right places again!

 

suggest this thread is made sticky!!!!!

[Supercharged 2]

Well done for perseverance - they are great when everything is working!

 

I'll sticky it now :-)

[AngusL 10]

Hi Chris, Good stuff on sorting this and sharing the info. My thoughts on the why the oil light didn't or wouldn't come on would be that the pump is still drawing oil so it's pressurized the oil pressure sensor is still getting a passable oil pressure to make it say all OK. The fact that there is a leak higher up in the engine just means that the leaky oil feed is not stopping the oil pressure switch from working so I can see how the oil light wouldn't come on in these circumstances.

[VW_chris 10]

Ahh you see, the leak was at the pump, you have a feed pipe from the pump to the block, where the pipe joins onto the pump is where the issue was dude

[AngusL 10]

These cars are made to test us.

[dubbrothers 10]

nightmare guys!

[markcunningham 10]

I better check mine then. I run 10-50 on all my vw’s year round. Chains and guides done at 180k US measure I do have tap at cold start and idle until temp raises and it quest down to half. Bought it at 170k so it could use new lifters and a pump check.

 

 

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