Could anyone give me some advise please. On a 3dr cos with original engine although only done 49,000 miles & has a bottom end rebuild at some point. Since i've had it the head has been stripped & rebuilt with new guides etc. The engine does not smoke & burns very little oil ( about a litre to every 2 or 3000 miles ). It has piston slap from cold but this goes after about 5 mins once warmed up. For a while now it has had slightly noisey tappets or so i thought, has for the last few months seemed like it has had 1 really noisey tappet that will sometimes go quiet & then will start being noisey again say if the car is at idle & at full working temp the tappet sounding noise will be their one minute & then will stop making the noise for a while then come back again. Got my local garage to change the followers yesterday, its a definate improvement now when started from cold noise wise but this noise i have described above is still their, to me it definately sounds like its coming from the top end like 1 sticking/noisey tappet as the noise comes & goes but all new followers ! I use Castrol 10-60 oil & the guy at the garage told me this is far to thin & if i were to use a thicker oil (semi synthetic) it would most proberly stop the noise. I know the other way to stop it is to strip the engine and rebuild it ! But that seems a bit drastic as it doesn't smoke & burns hardley any oil. Anybody got any ideas about using slightly thicker oil or what the noise could be ?

Thanks Simon.

 

dunno if i am right mate but i wouldnt say 10-60 is thin.there is thinner oil than that/wish i could help you mate.good luck.ps i have been told castrol rs 15-60 is the mutts nuts but if youve had a rebuild then maybe you dont need it.

 

I haven't had the bottom end rebuilt whilst iv'e had it, it was done a few years ago,probably done about 15k since.

 

pulleys
water pump
oil pump (think mines doing a similar thing)
starvation at top end due to crappy pump at rebuild
brocken ring (gives a ticking noise and usally loads of other probs )
worn rockers or cam and not taking up all the play (would happen all the time though)
sticking valve
just trying to thing of the most common things



failing that uve got engine goblins

 

Thanks for the suggestions, iv'e put it away in the garage & am gonna forget about it for a couple of weeks.

Cheers Simon.

 

Use Mobil 1 Motorsport 15w/50 or Castrol magnatec 15w/40

 

u cant et much thicker than tha mate - that is fully synthetic - semi/fully doesn't make any difference to the thickness or viscosity

 

Will try magnatec on sunday to see if this helps, thanks Stu.
Dave I was led to believe that castrol rs 10 60w was thinner than the above, must admitt i'm not to up on oil's myself, to quote what the guy at the garage said who fitted my followers ' this stuff is like piss' he has 2 cossies & said he runs both on 15-40w semi, thanks for your reply though mate.

Cheers Simon.

 

I use mobile 1 15w-50, its like syrup. If I pour it really quickly (holding the bottle completely verticle) I end up fully filling my funnel up then waiting half an hour for it to slowly trickle down. If you want anything thicker try lard.