[JgbOffRoad]

Okay, here is the skinny...... I have a 93 Trooper with 3.2l sohc AT 4*4.. and it has what i have lovingly called the death tick.. a loud tick from the passenger side valvetrain.. this weekend i am replacing the heads and timing belt, water pump, etc. IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE I SHOULD DO, while being torn into the engine this far? thankyou

 

[onetouch]

Are you replacing the heads over this tick issue, or do you have known head problems?

If its just a tick, I would doubt if the heads need replacing.

Maybe just a timing belt tensioner going bad, or depending on the "tick", just some seafoam and a oil change.

Jim

 

[TexasTrooper]

The worse feeling in the world is paying for something and installing it, thinking it will fix your woes, to find out that It is something else. If I were you, I would take one of two options below before ponying up the cash to replace half of my engine...

1. Low budget Option- Get yourself some fuel hose or a auto stethoscope, jack it up, turn it on, follow the sound, and have someone move the selector through all of the gears, if automatic (to eliminate your tranny and or bell housing if).

2. 20-45 dollar Option (depending on where you go)- Find yourself a reputable shop and just tell them you want them to diagnose your knock, or "tick" as you put it. Whatever you do, DO NOT tell them what you think it is. Because some guys may stroke your ego and replace 1/2 your engine for you, because you told them that's what you thought it was. When in fact that knock could be anywhere. A quality diagnosis will go a long way.
You can either pay upwards of 1000 plus dollars, roll the dice, and hope it solves your problem, or you can diagnose the noise before hand. :idea:

 

[JgbOffRoad]

we have already found the sound to be coming from the pass side valvetrain.... we replaced all the exhaust follower lifters and the tick went away for about 6k, then it came back like the plauge and with a vengance.. it is time for the timing belt to be replaced and to replace the intake lifters/ followers (which a local shop wanted to do) would cost me about 300.00, from my work i can get a complete set of heads (with cams, followers, lifters, etc.) for about 450.00... soooo i figure a couple extra bucks will pay off in the long run..... we are planing on keeping the trooper for years to come so iff nothing else i have peace of mind that all is well..... i figure if it is coming from the valvetrain, and to replace the intake lifters (big job) just spend the extra cash and do it once...

 

[dvtrooper]

Ok let me see if i got this correct you are going to change the heads because of a tick? i also own one of these and had a ticking noise at about 160,000 miles i thought man this tick is going to drive me nuts did a little reseach and found out this is normal for this to occur, here is what i ended up doing ran a half a can of seafoam in with my oil change and 5w30w syn oil figured couldn't hurt, took about 500 miles but the tick went completly away.

Changed oil again i now have 208,000 miles and it only burns 1/2 qt of oil every 3,000 miles and now i add a 1/2 can of seafoam right b4 every oil change.

I know alot of folks use mobil1 to help with this, i not saying do what i did but why not try it's a lot easier and if it works great if not proceed with your fix. Good luck Don

 

[JgbOffRoad]

i have been using mobil 1 sense we bought the rig.... i cant bevile i forgot to mention this... holy crap.... here it number two reason putting new heads on..... every 1k or so loses a lot of watter.... have a little steam coming out tail pipe.. no watter in oil, and no water leaks (used a dye addditive and a black light to try and find).. sooooo water must be going into combustion chamber... when it is cold there is a fair amount of steam... after it warms up it starts to fade... when the heads warm up the aluminum expands closing up the crack or fracture... a little while back my wife also got it very hot..... she went to a local off road spot and got mud caked in radiator and it over heated... sense then... the truck has just been un happy... i am going to take the heads in to be checked to our machine shop before i do the install.... i might be silly, but i am not dumb..

 

[dvtrooper]

Now that makes much more sense to me now, good luck on your repair.Don

 

[frizdag]

my, tapping noise I think I found is the driver's side intake manifold gasket has a leak or something and makes the tap, tap, tap noise of the exhaust from the engine when you push on the accellerator. That's $$$ to fix, so I'll just be loud..

 

[trooperbc]

my, tapping noise I think I found is the driver's side intake manifold gasket has a leak or something and makes the tap, tap, tap noise of the exhaust from the engine when you push on the accellerator. That's $$$ to fix, so I'll just be loud..

you mean exhaust manifold gasket, right?

and how expensive could that be (if you're doing the work). on the other hand, it could also be a cracked manifold; or a loose nut/stud; or ?

has a leak or something

come-on. . . . . . after all this, i want to know. . .

 

[frizdag]

you mean exhaust manifold gasket, right?

Yes I meant exhaust manifold gasket. My bad, any way I have no idea how to replace that so I would guess it would be expensive. However my Chilton manual makes it sound pretty simple to remove and install. Hmmm....maybe I should actually use that Craftsman tool chest full of tools I got for xmas and try it out...........Of course I need to get that a/c overheating thing fixed first. ..Good grief! Good luck with the ticking! :wink:

 

[JgbOffRoad]

well the exhaust valve rocker assy. was loose, the allen bolts came loose. anywho. I need to know what you 3.2l guys are running. 5-30 snythetic or 10-30?

 

[Canucklehead]

well the exhaust valve rocker assy. was loose, the allen bolts came loose. anywho. I need to know what you 3.2l guys are running. 5-30 snythetic or 10-30?

Mobil 1 5W30 here 8)

 

[Twiceblown]

I've got a similar knock on a 94 rodeo 3.2L i just picked up. Did tightening the rocker assembly fix the problem? I'd love to know that it's something simple like that. What are the torque specs?

Was your ticking intermittent? Mine comes and goes in about 5 second intervals. Usually stays clattering longer than it stays quiet.

 

[mdocod]

bought my 95 rodeo last summer... with 144k on it.

at about 150k , the infamous ticking began. (I wasn't aware at the time of purchase, that this particular enguine was WELL KNOWN for developing this issue ardoun 150k+..)..

I've just kept changing my oil, hoping to find a brand of oil that would reduce the ticking. Also been trying different weights of oil, and different types of oil additives available...

Mobile synthetic blend 10W40 high milage formula seemed to quiet things down slightly. Durring this summer I have started running 20W50 (regular petrolium type) to see if heavier weight oil would quite it down. This helped a little bit...

A few months ago. after trying STP, BG, MOA, and several other oil treatments, I tried a silver and black and blue can, of "enguine restore.".... I was about a half a quart low a third the way through a 3000 mile mark so i tried this instead of topping off with oil.... in 5 minuts, I was amazed. My enguine was smooth. no tick to be found. drove it with nearly no ticking whatsoever, through the remainder of that oil change, and continued using it for a few more oil changes... The usefullness of this oil addative, seems to have declined for me however. After about 10,000 miles, the tick has returned, and the enguine-restore oil treatment doesn't seem to help it any.

I'm pushing near 175K on this thing. I really would like to see another 50k out of this motor before it has to be rebuilt/replaced.

Have been meaning to try lucas, and rislone.

Some folks above are talking about something called "seafoam."

I've never heard of this, would be interested in where to aquire it and what it is and what it does.

[EDIT] : I'm pretty sure the ticking, is coming from the lifter/valve train- From the information I have read, and looking at diagrams of the enguine, also taking into consideration that there is no adjustability in the valve-train to makeup for tolerance changes.. it would seem to me, that the ticking is probably the sound of those hydrolic lifter "shims." banging back and forth... as those parts wear down, the space between them becomes larger, resulting in them clicking back and forth. The mechanics I have spoken with about the issue are in agreement... It seems to me, that the reason the "enguine restore" worked, for a little while, was that, it was able to bolster up this gap between parts. Also, heavier weight oil also seems to "fill-the-gap" better than lighter oils. I also ran with 5W50 weight full synthetic at for one change interval, it seemed to provide better protection between worn parts (less noise) while at the same time provided a more freeflowing oil. (noticed lower pressure readings, indicating that the oil flowed easier) Havn't been able to find this weight anywhere in town latally. It was a quaker-state "high perfomance enguine" type synthetic. I mentioned above, that I am currently using 20W50 weight, I only plan on using this through the summer months for experimentation, when cold whether comes back, i'll drop back down to a 5W or 10W winter rating.

 

[NICK MIRANDA::GREEN BUGGY]

I used to have a ticking noise my self. It only happens when i do not drive the rodeo in a day or so. but if i drive it everyday, i do not hear the noise. voiala!!

 

[NICK MIRANDA::GREEN BUGGY]

I used to have a ticking noise my self. It only happens when i do not drive the rodeo in a day or so. but if i drive it everyday, i do not hear the noise. voiala!!

 

[mdocod]

update on the death tick... a good cleaning agent like seafoam may very well be an excellent method to clear up this tick.... I think I have traced the source of the issue through some help from other forums..

my understanding at this point, is that, the valve trane is actually suppoesd to be "auto-adjusting"... such that as the parts wear down it repositions itself to compensate- here's the catch, the mechanism that pushes the parts into adjustment must be clean and relies on oil pressure to operate correctly. When carbon/sludge builds up in the right place, the ticking begins. So a good solid cleaner may well and do the trick, if it is actually good enough to remove these deposits... i'll be trying seafoam tomaro.

 

[Nathanb33]

Let us know if it helps. That ticking makes me crazy.

 

[hadji_85]

What are good places to put seafoam, or carbon cleaner in. I wanna try and clean the engine up a little. The only place i know to put carbon cleaner is in the EGR valve. Also now that i think about it, i dont remember if you put the carbon cleaner in the small hole or the big hole (i'll prolly just see which whole is sucking the air in.

 

[anthonyn]

What are good places to put seafoam, or carbon cleaner in. I wanna try and clean the engine up a little. The only place i know to put carbon cleaner is in the EGR valve. Also now that i think about it, i dont remember if you put the carbon cleaner in the small hole or the big hole (i'll prolly just see which whole is sucking the air in.

For the tick, most people add a can of seafoam in with the oil.

If you want to decarbonize the cylinders, try this procedure:

http://members.nuvox.net/~on.roz/cars/z28/seafoam.html

Pull the PCV out of the valve cover and dip it into some seafoam a bit at a time. Don't let it gulp continuously. You can also remove the hose going from the intake to the brake booster and use the brake booster end of the hose to suck up the seafoam.

This carbon cleaning is the only thing that has stopped my oil consumption cold and increased my mileage by around 2mpg. However, it doesn't last forever. Have to do it again soon.