Tick tick ticking, under the hood!

[Arghetlam]

Hey, all. First time posting, long time. . .uhh. . .Soob driver?

 

I'm having a bit of a problem with my '85 GL wagon. It's got the EA82 with a carb, five speed, four wheel drive, all that fun stuff.

 

And it ticks, until I hit about 3k. I'm just curious if this is indicatory of a problem, or if that's normal.

 

Any help on this particular issue would be greatly appreciated; I'm wondering if I should Rallycross it, or bite the bullet and take my Saab to play in the snow.

[Dogbone]

Do a search on "tick of death".

 

But don't let the name fool you, it's usually nothing "fatal", and engines that tick can and do continue to run for a long, long time.

 

The ticking on these EA82 engines tends to come from the hydraulic lifters not having enough oil pressure to keep them fully pumped up.

 

This is often caused from air getting sucked in the oil system and aerating the oil.

 

This typically can be fixed by pulling the oil pump and replacing the "mickey mouse" seal, which is typically dry and hard and no longer providing a good seal.

 

And there are two bolts on the back of the oil pump that sometimes work loose, and will allow air to be sucked in the oil as well. If you pull the oil pump, make sure these are tight as well.

 

And of course, if the cam oil seals are dry and leaking, it would be wise to replace these as well. This really goes for any major oil leaks, but the oil pump seals and cam seals seem to be the worse culprits for the tick of death.

 

Basically, get your oil system sealed up, and the ticking should go away.

 

This is assuming the lifters have not gotten gummed up to the point where they are "stuck", in which you can either try to flush the system out with Seafoam or Marvel Mystery Oil or transmission fluid. Otherwise unfortunately you'd have to pull the lifters out and physically clean or replace them. :-\

 

Being that you indicated the ticking stops when you hit 3K rpm, it sounds like the lifters are not stuck, and instead are just not seeing sufficient oil pressure.

 

Some folks do a flush and try running a thicker oil and seem to have success, but if your oil system is leaking, the proper fix is to seal up what needs to be sealed. Especially if you are wanting to Rallycross your Subaru.

 

Hope this is helpful. Welcome to the forum!

Edited December 9, 2010 by Dogbone

[GeneralDisorder]

Best solution is reman lifters (Mizpah Precision - $4.50 each), new oil pump, cam case o-rings and relief valve springs. Sure fire repair. Anything less is likely very temporary/transitory. A proper repair involving those parts will run about $250 with new timing belts and tensioners and you will never have this return if you change the oil regularly.

 

GD

[MTSuby]

I replaced the oil pump and seals, and cam seals. Every now and then my engine still ticks, sometimes LOUD, but one thing I've notice for sure, when my oil gets below 3/4, it ticks pretty much constantly. Consequently I replaced the oil pan gasket since it was leaking a lot. I'd always know when I was getting slightly low on oil, because it would start ticking, and even revving the engine up to 4k didn't make it go away

 

I'm assuming at some point I'll need to replace lifters if I care enough about the noise, but for now it mostly doesn't tick.