My Winter Upgrades

[Halon]

Well I decided to park the Talon after lunch today and drive the Saab back to work. On the way to lunch, I heard a ticking sound. The car has always ticked slightly upon warm-up, even before the rebuild happened. I've always considered it to be cold start piston slap due to the forged pistons and the material Mahle uses. This ticking today did get quieter after the engine warmed up, but didn't go away fully. I have about 250 miles on the motor so far since the rebuild.

I've never heard what rod knock sounds like, but I figured to be safe I'll just shut her down and start doing some investigating. Tonight I plan on pulling the valve cover to see if a rocker has fallen off. Also I'd like to check to see if the lifters are still good, but I guess I don't exactly know how to tell if one is bad (unless it has real obvious physical damage). Any advice? Anyone local who is more of an expert in this area, willing to stop by and listen to the ticking and give me their .02 cents?

One other thing I did notice in my quick 10 minutes of lunch time troubleshooting, is that there really isn't much tick when you free rev, or just cruise down the highway. But when you get on it, that's when you can begin to hear the ticking...

Worst case I suppose would be rod knock/spun bearing. I really have never heard a car with rod knock, so I have no clue. I guess I'm just preparing for the worst, but hoping for the best, all a guy can do eh..

[A//// Guy]

Im guessing its just lifter tick? Try and narrow down where the ticking is coming from if you can.

Man that would suck if it was something worse.. if it is, and I were you, dsms would be done... lol

Good luck!

[Speedfreak]

I'll be at work/the shop, but if you don't get any takers let me know, I'll swing over to help diagnose.

[Halon]

I actually had a dream last night that I traded the Talon in for a C5... hmmm....

I highly doubt that'll happen though :)

I will spend time tonight trying to narrow things down as good as I can.

If no one else steps up, maybe I'll just stop by your shop Momin. I love your new location :D

[4g63tcrazy]

Even though you haven't heard rod knock, you will know once you hear it. It's more of a knock knock knock on a door than a tick.

[Halon]

I'm also considering picking up some Seafoam or MCCC to clean up the combustion chamber. The head I put on had fairly dirty valves on them. Lots of shit cooked on them. So that may also be a cause. Hopefully some MCCC can wipe out a lot of that build up.

[Super Bleeder!!]

My timing belt makes some slap noises at certain rpms.

[asshanson]

You used the valves that head had on it already? I thought you had it all rebuilt with the stuff from your 1g head.

Anyway, I always had a bunch of lifter tick with that head, so maybe that's the issue. Especially with Mobil1 10w-30.

[Halon]

So how does one tell if a lifter is bad? Will it just push/plunge in and out easily without having to do poke it with a pin or something?

[Halon]

It was rebuilt using the stuff from the old head, like the Crower Springs/retainers, and new stem seals. The old head was stock valves, never had upgraded valves in the car. 4 of my valves from the old head were destroyed. So they just used the same valves when they redid this head. I figured they would have at least cleaned them a bit, but they didn't. I regret it now, hindsight is a bitch like that. I figured some E85 would help clean the crap outta them. I just called Dodge in Blaine, and they have some MCCC so I'll pick up a bottle of that, and suck it in through the PCV after work, and hope that it can clean those things up. I guess I don't really have a way to tell if they really do get cleaned or not.

But really at this point, what I really want to know if it is rod related or not. Because if that's the case, I need to start figuring out what to do ASAP as spring is damn near here.