Engine Noise / Ticking, Knocking, Tapping MERGED

[eric489]

All threads with vague titles regarding engine bay noises are now merged HERE.

If you honestly feel we can diagnose an internal engine problem from a poor description or low-quality video / audio sample, give it a shot.


I own a 1997 gst spyder and there is a ticking noise comming fron the engine. It comes and goes and it mostly sounds bad at idle. I have 97,000 miles on it and i change the oil regularly. I changed it about 2000 miles ago I need help to fix the problem.

 

[98GSt_4life]

i just finished my rebuild for the second time, and the car is running great, but im worried about this noise its making. i now have wiseco .20 over 9:1 pistons with eagle rods, and when i start the car there is no noise, but after it warms up i start to hear a kind of oily slaping noise comeing from the top and bottom of the engine. and it goes away around 2500-3000 rpm, and i dont hear it at all if theres a load on the engine. the noise is only at idle and free reving.

theres 400 miles on the engine and my compresion is great, the timeing is dead on..

 

[winterftbl]

Try to get a sound clip, if you can that could possibly pinpoint your problem.

 

[TAndrus]

I've been having horrible gas mileage problems so maybe something is affecting that too. I'll hopefully get a change to check some of this out soon. It's been so cold and freezing rain so I haven't had a chance to do much seeing that I don't have a garage to work in.

 

[Defiant]

Blind guess: piston slap.

There's never a good reason to free rev an engine. And more so with a turbocharged engine.

 

[dsmtalontsi95]

Whats your oil presure look like?

 

[chrismitsu47]

It might be your lifters or rockers that are making the noise because if you hear it at idle only then it almost cant be piston slap due to the fact that the valve would always be hitting the piston and when you rev the engine the slap should get alot louder. Now if it is the lifters or rocker then as you rev the engine the sound of the exhaust and the added oil pressure would muffle the sound. As dsmtalontsi95 said check your oil pressure at idle, It should be somewhere around 20-30 if I am correct.

 

[bjbaxter]

Yes I would have to agree, oil pressure is definately your best bet to start checking. Keep us posted

 

[98GSt_4life]

my oil pressure is good, so i know its not that. and i have revised lifters. and it never made the noise untill i put the pistons and rods in.

and if it was piston slap, wouldent i hear it all the time? and like i said its only when theres no load on the engine and it stops around 2500rpm, and the other thing i noticed yesterday is that if my idle drops bellow normal(900 rpm) i dont hear it.

i just did a compresion test and it is at 180 all the way across... and i noticed the noise is coming from the trany side of the engine

 

[ToDdErDoDdEr]

Oie.. well.. where to start.. a few days ago i noticed a weird tapping sound coming from my timing area.. i posted a thread asking what it could be but before i even had a chance to read the replys i worried a bit much and took it to the shop to check it out.. i tore it down and found a broken balance shaft belt lying neatly out of the timing belts way.. *whew* soooo i got a new timing belt, printed off the timing belt replacement information from vfaq and balance shaft eliminator info from a previous thread with the intentions of doing that..

alright.. soo i set to work, pull everything apart and try removing the front engine cover without completely removing the oil pan.. well i get every bolt out, everything out of the way and try to pull it off and i come to find that some a**hole rtv'd the oil pan on the car.. well there goes that idea.. i set off to buy a balance shaft belt to replace that and i do everything according to specs, start it up.. HOLY CRAP ITS SMOOTH.. i must have boughten the car with a broken balance shaft belt.. anyways, i drive it back home and i get the weird clicking/tapping noise back, along with a new chirping noise..

what im wondering is this:
1 - do bad balance shaft bearings make this chirping noise if they are bad?
and
2 - is this clicking/tapping noise a bad timing belt tensioner? i didnt replace it..

thanks for your wisdom in advance guys..

 

[EagleTalonTim]

More than likely the tapping noise is your timing belt tensioner gone bad and allowing too much slack in your timing belt, and the chirping could be one of the timing pulleys just worn out. Also ensure that you installed the timing pulleys correctly and did not bend the one closest to the water pump. I did that once before and got a chirping noise coming from that pulley hitting the water pump.

 

[ToDdErDoDdEr]

what about the crank pulley.. i read in some previous post that it could be that making the noise.. but i dont understand what would squeek with that.. it looked fine when i put it back on.?

 

[Old Mitsu Tech]

I agree on the tensioner. Always replace the tensioner. The belt will not hold if the tensioner is bad. You will likely throw the belt, bend valves, etc. All those horrible things will befall you if you don't do this very basic thing.

Chirping on startup could be your alternator belt not tight enough. If that's not it, you will have to be more specific as to the location.

 

[wret]

The crank pulley is two metal parts separated by a rubber one. When the rubber goes, as it eventually does, it allows the the two metal parts to slip. That's where the squeak comes from and that's only the first symptom. The other symptoms are clanging, clicking, and rapping sounds eventually followed by dropping accessory belts.

 

[Splitpi]

I think you should find out why the original balance shaft belt failed to begin with... rather just putting a new one on. I would think if the first failed as horribly as you described you have an issue with your balance shaft and that clicking may be from the shaft itself... along with some other things (tensioner, pulleys, etc..).

 

[JusMX141]

I don't know about you guys, but I always start the car and let it run a few seconds after a timing belt change without the timing cover or any of the accessory drive belts on to make sure there are no issues or strange noises before I seal it up.

 

[ToDdErDoDdEr]

see, i did start it up when i had it all apart yet and everything seemed fine and dandy... i seem to find out lately that after the car has ran for about a minute is starts making the chirping noise.. the clattering isnt as prominant as it was before i did the timing belt.. and i dont think its the alternator because if i spin it by hand its nice and quiet, plus the noise does sound like it could be coming from the tensioner pulley area.. its gotta be behind that cover somewhere..

do the tensioner pulleys and auto tensioners wear out easily? What i mean is like do they fail to come out after the 15 minutes or whatever.. that sucker was hard as hell to compress, i had to use a press machine.. the vice just wasnt cutting it.. but it didnt seem like there was that much force pushing back up against the little allen wrench i stuck in there to hold it compressed

(also i didnt unbolt any of the pulleys so i dont think i could have bent it..)

im starting to doubt that this noise has anything to do with the front balance shaft.. the more i listen to it, the more it seems like it might be the tensioner pulley..

maybee?

 

[V8notENUF]

Does the noise occur while idling only or in upper rpm's as well?

 

[ToDdErDoDdEr]

it does it all the time i think.. when you rev it, it doesnt get louder, just a higher pitch, the noise from the engine itself covers the sound if it was there at really high revvs

 

[ToDdErDoDdEr]

alright.. so i have an update, i took it to the shop tonight and decided best not to drive it right now.. but my curiosity got the best of me so i HAD to pull it apart again

as i was pulling it apart i started to take mental notes of the condition of everything.. first thing i found is that i may have ruined my water pump.. i think i forgot to fully tighten the pulleys onto the water pump, so now the pump has a little movement up and down & side to side.. alright so theres somethingthing, so then it got my hopes up that maybe thats what was making the whirring/chirping sound.. started it with no acc. belts on and it was still there, ok.. keep moving forward.. i take the crank pulley bolts out and pull on the edges of the pulley to try and remove it and to my surprise, that pulled outwards, but it was still stuck to the crank.. ok so maybe the crank pulley is bad? started it.. nope still there.. so i removed the timing cover and started it again, but i just cant pinpoint the noise.. maybe it really is the front balance shaft making that noise.. i know it wasnt there when i bought the car, and it only started after i replaced the balance shaft belt that must have been broken when i bought it.

also one other note, theres no metal flakes in the oil.. even took the filter off to check for traces of metal flakes in there but i see none..

helppp please!

 

[wret]

i take the crank pulley bolts out and pull on the edges of the pulley to try and remove it and to my surprise, that pulled outwards, but it was still stuck to the crank.. ok so maybe the crank pulley is bad?

Yup.

 

[boostcrazyawd]

Well now you should replace the tensioner and all the pulleys and do the bs removal. it seems like the noise could be from your bs or pulleys.

 

[ToDdErDoDdEr]

when you say i should replace the tensioner, do you mean the tensioner pulley, or the hydraulic peice?

im gonna record a video of it later tonight when i go down there.. ill post it up later.. maybe actually hearing it will help clarify it alot. =]

 

[Calan]

when you say i should replace the tensioner, do you mean the tensioner pulley, or the hydraulic peice?

im gonna record a video of it later tonight when i go down there.. ill post it up later.. maybe actually hearing it will help clarify it alot. =]

Definitely change the hydraulic tensioner... but why not just replace it all and be safe? Unless you like tearing into the timing side of these things

While you're in there, it wouldn't hurt to pull the front cover and check the condition of your oil pump. (Replace the oil pump sprocket and nut also.. they are notorious trouble makers).

And... you may also want to search for posts on porting the oil pump return. Oldman has a few very good posts on this, and it helps keep the oil pressure in check on modded cars (if applicable).

One more piece of advice; I would go with only genuine factory parts for anything timing related.

 

[ToDdErDoDdEr]

well, i was gonna record a vid tonight but i got there and my camera died.. soo tomorrow i will..

but i was originally planning on a bs removal but the front engine cover just didnt wanna come off, i didnt want to remove the oil pan because of it being AWD (requires moving the damn transfer case and exhaust) and it was RTV'd on, which meant it would HAVE to come completely off..

 

[Calan]

BTW - The oil pan is RTV'd (or at least some type of nasty tough stuff that looks like RTV ) from the factory. Gaskets are available, but only as an aftermarket thing.

When I replaced mine, I went with a felpro gasket and a light film of RTV on both sides; but most wisemen would probably tell you to use the factory type seal... which is the RTV. Just a hunch