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92' Loyale ticking. Will this fix it??


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92' Loyale A/T 4WD. Alright this thing has me about ready to send it to the scrap yard, i've officially had enough!!!!:banghead: !!!! The oil pump pressure is fine, i've replaced the oil relief valve spring on both banks of the engine, replaced the oil pump gaskets etc, ran all sorts of sea foam etc., trans fluid, & everything else I could think of through the engine. Now I have the cam cage pulled off & i've checked all the oil galleys for obstructions including the oil holes on the cam, & they're all fine. I'm now going to replace the o-ring between the cam cage & head, which seems to give a lot of folks problems, to see if that fixes it.

The o-ring doesn't seem to be very deteriorated but i'm gonna replace it anyway.

While I was in there, I pushed down on the slack adjusters to test their resistance & the middle two gave way fairly easily but the outer two were absolutely unmovable. Could this be part of the problem?? I tested them while they were still located in the head since I couldn't pull them out, I tried.

The "ticking" is only coming from the drivers side bank of the engine, which is the side I have torn apart right now.

While I have the cam cage off, are there any suggestions other than the o-ring that I need to do??

Basically this is the LAST (4th) time i'm tearing this car down. If this doesn't fix it, it's getting sent to the tuna can factory or sold to somebody that likes loud cars. A terrible fate for a near mint condition car that only has 128,000 miles on it!!!

I WANT MY 89' DL BACK!!!!!! :clap:

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We just resealed my entire engine in my Loyale..and resealed the oil pump...I still have a minor tick at first but it does go away....Have you tried replacing the HLAs?? Thats usually what is causeing the tick and if the other remedies dont work thats about all thats left. I wouldnt junk the car for a tick personally...I ran mine for 2 years with the ticking (about 35,000 miles).

 

 

Just a thought

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Is it loudest at startup then goes away as it warms up?

 

Sounds like its piston slap, and there are many many many posts on it. Harmless, annoying but something one lives with. Seems to happen more on one side of the engine then the other.

Take a wooden doowel or long scredriver and use it as a stehoscope to trace the sound.

 

Not all noises mean doom, espeically on a car that is 15 years old. We all creak with age.

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not so fast - a seized HLA won't be squishy and will cause your problems. i usually stick a straight edge across mine (i have a 6 cylinder so there are 6 per side), which ever one looks out of whack (isn't lined up with the rest in terms of height) is the one(s) that need replaced. only had to do this once and i found two that were seized and would not budge...even a C-Clamp would not compress them. i replaced them and all ticking went away. if the ticking is on one side (drivers side), this is most definitley not the oil pump that is why that did not fix the issue. i've posted this about 30 times, but random ticking across all cylinders points to oil pump issues while ticking associated with one cylinder (sometimes confirmed with off compression on those cylinders as well) points to the HLA's of that cylinder. replace you HLA's and you'll be golden. replace it with known good ones.

 

you can try compressing/disassembling them if you want this thing back together quick. i've done it, time consuming but it is possible and if you can't get it apart due to being seized then trash the bad HLA. both of the bad ones i removed would not seperate at all. pulled the caps off and they would not disassemble after soaking in cleaners, ATF, heating in oven, pulling with assorted tools....all sorts of stuff. i trashed them. easiest solution is just get known good used ones or get them from Mitzpah Engineering (look them up on Yahoo), they sell them for like 5 bucks a piece - that's a much better deal than cleaning/disassembling yourself as it's time consuming. but it can be done if yo'ure wanting it back together.

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I had ticking that was due to a bad front camshaft seal. It was leaking badly enough that either not enough oil or oil pressure was getting to the lifters. It sounds like you have the engine apart enough to tell pretty easily if that is the problem.

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Mine is similar to Mudduck's. (87GL) The Tick has been coming and going every couple of minutes for the last seven years and over ninety thousand miles.... (203k/mi Total) I finally pulled the motor last week for a different reason and plan on taking care of it now.

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So basically the HLA's shouldn't be squishy & shouldn't give way easily but they shouldn't be rock hard either?? Hmmm, looks like I've got two of each example. I'm heading out to see if I can get those things out of their bores, they were stuck pretty bad when I tried yesterday & wouldn't budge at all. I just hope I can do something to fix the existing ones because I really can't let the car sit for several days while i'm waiting for a shipment of new ones from "who knows where", I need my wheels. The local Napa parts store said they could get me some by monday but they were $42 each & there's no way in hell i'm paying that much for them. There aren't any suby's in the junk yards in this part of the country either so getting used ones is out of the question.

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soak 'em in ATF or cleaner as long as possible. try to compress them and see if you can get them to operate through their range of motion. when you compress them, oil will slowly seep out as the HLA compresses. clean them up real good and reintall. a seized HLA just won't compress at all and that will verify your problem - it is stuck and that can cause ticking. as far as determining if they all pump up properly i can't help you there, i've never had that problem so i'm not sure how to diagnose it. but if you clean all 4 i think a bad one should stick out. they should all end up the same when you're done cleaning/draining them of oil.

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Alright these lash adjusters aren't coming out of their bores!!!!!!! This is getting rediculous. So far i've only gotten 1 out, the other 3 can be spun around freely in their bores but they sure ain't coming out!! That makes NO sense to me!!!

I've even tried spraying solvent around them to unstick them but apparently that ain't the problem.

Ok I have an idea & tell me if this is possible or way off.

Could it be that they're stuck in their bores because of suction behind them, which to me would mean that the oil galleys inside the head, which feed their bores, are clogged. Which in turn would also explain the lack of oil getting to them & causing the terrible ticking? HMMMMMMMMMMM

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Actually, thats not uncommon. Take a deep breath and calm down. They have had a happy home for many many yearsand are not crazy about being pried out.

There used to be a fairly inexpensive tool made for the sole purpose of grabbing the hydraulic lifters and yanking them out

 

http://www.aeasyshop.com/products.asp?lang=HYDRAULIC_LIFTER_TOOL-prod-17120848-24050079 this is what it looks like. If you are planning on replacing the lifters you can get a little agresive in removing them.

Waht you are seeing is normal, hence thy the 7.00 tool.

 

Also some info on lifters

 

http://www.cranecams.com/?show=techarticle&id=2

 

nipper

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Ok I finally got those lash adjusters out after several tries & lots of dirty words!! Man were those things stuck!!

I found that two of them were siezed to the point of being rock hard. So as an experiment I used a pair of large channel locks & squeezed them down. It took a LOT of pressure & about 5 minutes each but they finally emptied all of the oil. The oil that came out looked like it'd been inside them for quite some time. After they softened up I immersed them in solvent & started squeezing them in & out rapidly for several minutes each. They aren't siezed up at all now so i've put them back in & we'll see tommorow if they work or not. If they do work, I think i've somewhat disproved the theory that siezed lifters are junk. Let's hope my experiment works.

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