960 tapping noise, comes and goes

[cmp2404]

Hi i've recently become a 960 owner and had the car for a few months and a few weeks ago i noticed a tapping noise from the engine it seems worse when cold but comes and goes rather than being constant.

As i'm new to the forum i tried to attach the video but was unable to.

A very vague description but could e-mail the video to anyone that might be able to help.

Thanks Connor

[mjk164]

The 2.9 engine fitted to the 960 has hydraulic tappets. When all is new, engine oil readily gets to the tappet hydraulics very quickly and you get little or no noise. At the general age of our 960 cars, the oil passages slowly get gummed up when using regular oil and it takes longer for the oil to get to the tappet. The answer is to change to fully synthetic engine oil and stay on it. My 1993 960 is at about 360,000 miles now and I changed to syn oil about 150,000 miles ago and, after about 5000 miles the oil had cleaned out the oilways and I have no tappet noise now.
The other way is to take the cylinder head off and clean out the oilways manually! Changing to fully syn oil is much easier and does the job.

[Laird Scooby]

Add some synthetic ATF (Carlube ATF-U is good) to the engine oil and drive it. After a fairly short while you'll think you've gone deaf.
Works every time on noisy hydraulic lifters, also cleans the engine internally and revives tired oil seals.

When you do an oil and filter change, use between 0.5-1.0L of ATF then top up to the normal level with your usual engine oil. It works out cheaper than running fully synthetic engine oil and minmises the risk of fully synthetic engine oil causing leaks and/or poor compression in an older engine.

[m0bzy]

I agree with changing the oil,I had the same problem and it was cured by doing two oil changes within a couple of thousand miles,I was then left with an irritating tap that was worse if the car was stood nose up,the tap went away as soon as the engine was warm,despite yet another oil change using an additive recommended by my independent and against my better will resulted in no change I decided to live with it.
At MOT time I left the car with the garage overnight , when I collected it the tap had gone ,the garage had never heard the tap as the engine had always been warm ,this time it was cold and the tap turned out to be a small exhaust blow,half a turn on the clamp and no more noise. Took eighteen months and half an oil field to find it.