240 General: tapping and juddering

[Paul240480]

I did have a 'jangleing' noise on mine a few years back, it turned out to be a rather spectacular rear wheel bearing failure....... one that I sort of ignored fro too long before investigating.......

It eventually went VERY noisy.... but drove home at about 10mph for 2 miles.....
I didnt have the massive pullers to remove the bearing, so went to a scrappy and pulled a 1/2 shaft, regreased it and stuffed it in. Been good for 3 or 4 yrs now.

[Clifford Pope]

Yikes! Nothing like that. In fact, swapping one bearing+shaft made little difference to the noise.
But since I last posted, the juddering has gone again, and the car has covered several hundred miles. So I still don't know what it was, or whether it's gone for good.


The engine tapping is more persistent. I've been monitoring the circumstances and the loudness, but come to no conclusions.

It is loudest when cold. As the engine warms up it diminishes considerably.
It is just a ticking noise at idle, increases in loudness up to 1800 rpm, and has largely gone at 2000 rpm.
It is mainly a feature of gentle acceleration. On hard acceleration, or over-run, it goes away.
It does it in all gears apart from 5th.
It has no effect on running or performance.

So that seems to eliminate anything to do with the valve gear, because that would surely be purely speed-dependent, not related to drive torque?
It has some connection with gearbox, but not a lot.
It is unaffected by clutch.

Short of taking the engine to pieces to examine pistons, connecting rods, bearings, etc, I can't think of anything to do other than leave it and wait and see if anything happens?

It has I now realise been doing it for a very long time- over 100,000 miles.
Because it is most noticeable when cold, and that is when I run the car on petrol before switching over to gas, I had put it down to the rather hydraullic-sounding noise that lots of cars make from the fuel injection system. But I now realise it does it irrespective of type of fuel.

Perhaps it's just a feature of a 2.3 engine with a bit of piston slap, and nothing to worry about?

[Derek UK]

Piston slap is a possibility. Didn't late engines and Turbos get oil squirters to minimise that?

[honestjoe]

Hi Clifford..could it be injection related..ie leaking injector seal say for instance or some related leak?..hj.

[Clifford Pope]

That's interesting - I hadn't thought of that. You mean a leaking injector seal could make a noise simply from the induction pressure imbalance, even if the injectors were not operating because the car was running on gas?

I'll check that straightaway with the WD40 test.

[Paul240480]

Now you mention that HJ mine did 'tick' when my intake manifold gasket leaked.

It was engine speed related until once at a certain speed, the engine/road noise masked it.

Injectors caused a lumpy idle and juddery acceleration , but was okay when 'cold' in choke mode.....

Both since have been replaced.

[BrianH]

Oil feed to cam shaft.

Go into brickboard and search cam lubrication.

Just did that, and how to clean the oil ways

If not you have a big problem.

BrianH

[Clifford Pope]

Originally Posted by BrianH

If not you have a big problem.

Oh.
There is plenty of oil flying around under the cap, and it pools by the valve buckets. So it doesn't look like oil starvation.
Also I don't see why camshaft or valve noise would vary with tiny variations in engine load at a constant speed?

Not injectors - there is no change of note or speed when spraying WD40 around the seals.

[Paul240480]

Did you spray round the intake manifold too?

[Clifford Pope]

Update:

1) The drive juddering has vanished. Whatever caused it seems to have stopped, and hasn't returned in the approx 1000 miles I've driven since last posting.

2) The engine tapping however is still the same. I've taken the cam shaft out, checked the buckets, no cracked shims, no apparent play in the bearings, no obvious blockage in the oil supply, plenty of oil flying around.
I did think the noise seemed to be coming from the distributor, and I imagined it chattering up and down because of end-float in the shaft. But my spare one does exactly the same, so it's not that.
It diminishes a bit when hot, and ceases above about 2000 rpm, but below that is quite a pronounced knock, and taps at idling speed.
That only leaves piston slap, or big or little end end, or broken piston ring?

3) The car is now for sale. I've found a much better one, and I'm long past the enthusiast stage of relishing major engine overhauls. To add to the gloom someone came round a corner without looking and squashed the front of of the offside wing and pushed the lower panel in. I've straightened it out roughly and replaced the lights. I've a spare wing and panel in excellent condition, even in the right colour, to go with the car.

What's it worth? It's quite solid underneath, runs well apart from the knocking, has done 330,000 miles, MOT until March 2016, and has an LPG conversion.
£250?

I've listed it in the Sales section with a bit more detail