So out of no where I start my car up and I have this horrible ticking coming from the engine bay. It is definitely a tick not a rod knock or anything like that. As you increase the rpm's the tick increases. So I checked the oil it was normal. I drained the oil...it was a little dirty but not horrible. There was no metal shavings in the oil but I dropped the oil pan off of it anyway. It was a clean as could be. The pickup was not clogged in any way. Putting it back together and changing the oil and adding a bottle of lucas oil stabilizer to see if that helps. I run Pennzoil ultra class full synthetic European blend oil from the day I have had the car and never had any issues. If anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them. I will have the oil changed tomorrow and I will go from there. I didn't know if anyone has ran into this before.

 

Get a stethoscope. You can get that at auto parts stores. Then put it all over the engine and see the source of the noise. You don't have cam adjusters, but I'd put the steth all around the valve covers. I've also pay a lot of attention to the timing belt cover. And I'd do it soon. Real soon.

 

It might be a valve lifter that isn't holding oil properly. If due to a stuck check valve, I've heard that running a quart of ATF along with motor oil may loosen it. However, on an older Audi that I once had, I ended up replacing several noisy lifters. Fortunately, on the 12V this isn't such a bad job.

 

Yea I know that we changed the timing belt on my Audi probably 4 months ago so it is new. I'll take a steth and see what I find.

 

Ok so here is the bad. Took the valve cover off the drivers side. Also changed the oil and put Lucas engine stabilizer in as well. When I took off the oil filter it has bubbled out and when I got it off the inside of the wix filter came loose or broke inside the canister. the check valves look fine in the heads not broke And no blockage. I hooked up a mechanical oil pressure gauge up to the motor started it and it is carrying almost 60 lbs at idle. When the valve cover off there was very minimal oil making it to the head. What could be causing the blockage to the top end. I have a video of the noise but can't seem to figure out how to post it.

 

Yea Bentley says 1.2-1.6 bar at the oil pressure switch. So yea, you've got a problem in that block and I'll bet little or no oil is getting to the top. Is there a lot of sludge in that block?

 

No sludge at all it is totally clean and te oil pan was clean as well. Not even a spec of sludge.

 

The wix oil filter that was on it broke apart inside of itself and now I wonder if part of it got inside the motor. There is hardly any oil coming out of the lifters to the top end. I have a blockage somewhere into the heads.

 

Ouch. Sounds like you know what you're doing so I don't have to tell you this is a real pain in the ***. You can Google around to see everyone's idea of how to chase clogged oil passages, but I think the heads have to come off.


The good news? That motor is known to leak oil out the head gaskets....now you can finally solve that!

 

Yea im pretty frustrated with the issue....now im not sure if I want to spend the time and money fixing this one or buy a used motor and drop in it....the car is in too good of shape not to fix it. Plus im building a foxbody mustang as a toy and of course its not ready yet so now I have two cars and cant drive either.