4 banger ticking sound from engine?

I have a 93 2 door xj with the 2.5 in it. When i start it up it ticks. I know that the 2.5 do make noise but the ticking in my engine is load u can hear it inside of my cab when its idealing. what is this sound? help?

My 4.0 gets a pretty good tick when the harmonic balancer is starting to go. The rubber center starts to seperate, and the balancer hits the timing cover.

jeepnfahey said:

I have a 93 2 door xj with the 2.5 in it. When i start it up it ticks. I know that the 2.5 do make noise but the ticking in my engine is load u can hear it inside of my cab when its idealing. what is this sound? help?

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It could be a few things but I would check to see if it is a lifter starting to knock.

Kim.

Its probably a lifter. Mine has been doing that for awhile but after getting warmed up, it stops and runs quiet.

Mine is a 4.0*

The injectors make a kind of sewing machine noise level noise as they click away. My guess would be lifters or lifter too. They get clogged with sludge and take a long time to fill. From what I have heard, I don't believe in miracle solutions either, Marvel Mystery oil is supposed to work well at cleaning them out as would going to a 50/50 mix of organic oil and mobil-1 or castrol syntec.
Anytime though that you put either a cleaner or high detergent oil in there keep an eye on the dipstick because the oil is going to turn black much faster than you are used to and will require a more frequent 'filter change and add a quart'. If you can't read the writing on the dip stick it's time to change the filter.

Check the front and rear studs on the exhaust manifold, they're prone to breaking in the 2.5L and allowing enough exhaust to leak to be an annoying ticking sound. If they're broken you'll just see an empty hole on the manifold flange, the very front and rearmost mounting holes.

Could it possibly be the timing chain tensioner going bad or would the chain slapping be a lot louder?

It could be a bunch of things. Take a piece of vacuum hose or get an engine stethoscope and see if you can find where it's coming from. You'll be able to hear it better and can determine if it's metallic or something else.
If you have a Fram filter, I would change it out. They have become so bad in the past few years (since being taken over by a foreign company) that Ford and Chrysler/Jeep have sent out notices that they will NOT warranty any engine with the regular Fram orange filter on it. They tend to collapse a LOT more than other filters. (I know of several Jeeps and Ford diesels that died from the internal collapsing. There was rumoured to be a class action suit starting against them)
I know my own oil pressure jumped 20 lbs @60mph hot going from Fram to another brand (with less than 500 miles since the oil change)

Hey guys. If you read my post about almost killing my jeep, JeepnFahey(who posted this thread) was the guy who was with me. What he forgot to mention is he has a 2.5 out of a 97 wrangler with approx. 70k.

Figured I'd throw that in if it helps. And yeah, its a good loud knock.

zfinger said:

Hey guys. If you read my post about almost killing my jeep, JeepnFahey(who posted this thread) was the guy who was with me. What he forgot to mention is he has a 2.5 out of a 97 wrangler with approx. 70k.

Figured I'd throw that in if it helps. And yeah, its a good loud knock.

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Hmmmm, does he have your affinity for water too
We have two 2.5 TJ's, both with well over 100K on them and they 'tick' but it's from the injectors. A knock is something else entirely. There was mention of using a hose or somthing to locate the sound. I used a long phillips head screwdriver, you have to be careful doing this because the engine is running so pay attention. With the engine running solidly plant the tip of the long screwdriver against the engine then tilt your head and get the handle up against your ear, the noise will be transmitted thru the screwdriver. Now *CAREFULLY* move the tip around to get the noise louder until you locate the spot where it is noisiest. There is also a company called lisle that sells tools in most parts stores off of a rack, they sell a stethescope that you can do the same thing with. This is a time proven method and is even used now a days on Navy ships and submarines, my CO's on both the fast attack and boomers I've served on used this to check the propeller shaft for bad bearings and it worked well, well enough that they could locate the bad spot on a 3 foot diameter shaft by moving it around on the bearing cap, then they would mark the cap with a magic marker. First time I saw it I thought they were shining me on being the FNG on board but it was for real. :laugh3:

If there is a knock and not a tick than it might be a connecting rod. Mine started to do that after Memorial weekend. When it is cold it doesn't do it unless I rev it up high. But when it is warmed up you will hear it at idle and it gets very loud when revving the engine. Something to look into to being the cause.

Kim.

no one has mentioned the xj gremlin, the ticking sound is his nails hitting eachother as he says "exxxxcellent".
Could also be time for a feul system clean. I had a pretty good click going from the injectors and a bottle of in tanks fuel system cleaner cleared it up. 5 Bucks is pretty cheap to clear up a problem and it wont hurt anything if it isn't just a cas of dirty engine.

A fellow club member had a loud knock in his 2.5L that would increase in speed with the rpm, turned out to be a busted piston skirt.

jfiscus said:

Could it possibly be the timing chain tensioner going bad or would the chain slapping be a lot louder?

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That's what I've determined mine is. I bought a mechanical stethescope and have it pinpointed to the middle-right side of the chain cover as the loudest point. It's a very rythmic sound that starts after about 2 minutes of running (from cold)....clacka/CLACK/clacka/CLACK. It's been doing it for about the last 25K miles, and I haven't felt any performance decrease (I can remember the exact day and location that the sound started).

It's got 160K and some change on it now, and I'm trying to get 200K out of it before I pull the engine out for a rebuild. I've got a spare one sitting in the garage to swap in then, or if this one doesn't get there
Jeff