Oil add's to quiet tapping

Hiya folks!

I've searched, and searched, and could only find info on Marvel Mystery Oil and Auto-Rx. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find MMO and don't have a credit card to order Auto-Rx, so I'm flying a little blind here.

As some folks have seen in my other thread http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=915556&highlight=Doom 'Impending Doom or Clean Engine' I have a mystery tapping that sounds like a cranky diesel in my 4.0 auto-equipped Cherokee. The tapping is still there and so are traces of the sludge, and all I can think about is a stuck/collapsed lifter that's wearing out fast. I tried tracing the tap with a mechanic's stethescope, but could not pinpoint it. I'm of the opinion that I should at least try to unstick whatever is stuck, so am turning to additives to help flush/melt/gobble whatever deposits might be causing the tap. All I can find in these here parts are the following...

Wynn's: Has anyone tried this? The guys I talked to at the parts stores hadn't heard of MMO, and thought Wynn's was the way to go. They said 'it's been around for years, and should at least be as good as this Mystery Oil.'

Restore: Another add-in treatment that claims to do lots for you. No comments from the parts guys, I'd stopped asking for their advice from this point.

Bardahl: (Or however the heck it's spelled.) I don't know how to pronounce it, and I'm kinda leery of pouring it into my engine. Have I judged it unfairly, or have my instincts served me well?

If there's info on this, or I search like my grandmother, please point me in the right direction. If folks have used these, or have warnings, please speak up.

I need all the help I can get.

ok here is my opinon take it for what it is

I would change my oil and buy a quart of trany fluid. replacing one quart of oil for one of tranny fluid I would run my engine for about 30 min. drain the oil change the filter and then add a can of seafoam to the oil and drive it for about 500 miles. and repeat. if its a dirty lifter or sludge buildup this should get it cleaned up.

Right, trans fluid is a very good engine cleaner.

As is seafoam!

Good luck.

Have you removed valve cover and spark plugs then manually rotated engine to check lifters for obvious slop? Really doesn't take too long to do.

While it's not an accurate way, it will at least tell you if you have a serious issue. Either worn cam or lifter.

you should be able to find MMO at any of the chains, advance auto and autozone both have it locally.
otherwise, I second the seafoam.

Walmart even carries MMO. For more entertainment value for the 24-hr Walmart and go at 2am. The really creepy customers come out at night.

Wynn's is also a good, old brand name. They have many additives, Risolene is also good. Which ever brand you use make sure it is the thin runny stuff that is specifically an upper valve lubricant and specifically says that it unsticks, sticking noisy lifters. Wynn's does have a product for that too. Personally I prefer and use MMO, but I used Wynn's back in the 1970s. MMO may not be available in Canada?

Blaine B. said:

Right, trans fluid is a very good engine cleaner.

As is seafoam!

Click to expand...

Just to point out:

Trans fluid is a lot like motor oil, but with another additive package that includes a lot more cleaning additives. Although I would NEVER push my motor to the limits unless everything was perfect, you can drive around with a quart of ATF in the motor oil if you take it easy on the motor, and leave it there for a couple of hundred miles cleaning the motor while you drive.

SeaFoam is a powerful Solvent, that most likely severely degrades the oil, if you add it to the oil, you only idle the motor for a half hour then change the oil right away. I WOULD NOT DRIVE AROUND WITH SEAFOAM IN THE OIL, your likely looking at engine damage from the degraded oil.

Thanks for all the replies folks!

I think MMO is available here in Canada; I've seen MMO products, just nothing for what I want! (I forget what MMO bottle I found was for, IIRC it was for 2-stroke...) I haven't tried Walmart yet, just Canadian Tire, AC/Delco store, Partsource, and another one I can't remember. (Been a LoooooOOOOOnnng day.)

I've changed the oil three times now, and each time I did so, I ran a half-litre of tranny fluid in the oil for 50 kms or so. What seemed to start the problem was the switch to MaxLife Synthetic oil. Could easily have been a coincidence, though... (I love MaxLife, and run it in all of my junk.)

I'll go to Walmart tomorrow and see if I can scoop some MMO. If I can't find it there, I'll cruise on up to the Napa store (half-hour drive, but it's a BIG store!) and if I still don't have any luck I'll take it as a sign and buy Wynn's + Seafoam.

Thanks for the help folks!

I know, I only ran my Seafoam in the engine for about 500 or so miles....

And yes, I've noticed that about late-night Walmart customers too

Something else you might try is Lucas Oil Additive. http://www.lucasoil.com/ I use it in all my engines, especially when they start to get up in the higher-mileage range....It thickens up the oil quite a bit, and helps keep it from leaking past valve guides and other seals. On the other hand, it may actually make your tapping worse, IDK.


*edit* No, I don't get paid by Lucas...I'm just really impressed with their products. Tranny and fuel additives, too...the whole line is full of good stuff. Little salty, tho....

It has Lucas in it now, but I never thought it'd make the ticking louder...

I love the Lucas stuff too. I've used a lot of their products, and the only ones I've not really been blown away by is the oil additive and the Fuel treatment. (Never really noticed a difference with either.)

Lifters are the tappets that ride on the cam lobes, with a little piston and valve inside it. The oil under pressure from the engine, is pushed thru the valves into the chamber under the piston and pushes the piston out to contact the push rod and take up any slack in the valvetrain. Now with heat and cooling the valve train will expand and contract, so the lifter does allow oil to leak out as well, so the piston can be pushed back a little bit and take up for the valvetrain expanding.

So the piston moving a little up and down as necessary also pumps the oil thru the lifter.

Where the problem comes, is varnish and dirt gum up the valves and the little piston and it doesn't get pumped up all the way to take up any slack in the system, so there is some space and every time the valves go up and down that gap opens and closes creating a ting/tick noise each time.

The idea is too use thinner oil with cleaning agents to work its way thru the lifter and help clean up the gunk and dissolve the varnish, which will free it up, let the oil get into easier and let it pump fully and take up any slack in the valvetrain and get rid of the ticking.

Using thicker oil, would more likely let less oil pump thru the lifter and less cleaning agents cleaning out that gunk and varnish and free it up.

You could argue, that in some cases, the thicker oil might stay in the lifter more and pump it up more and solve the problem. I'm sure its probably happened, but usually the problem is the lifters are gummed/varnished up and you want cleaning agents inside them to clean that out and get them working like designed.

SO, you never know, maybe an additive that thickens the oil might do something, but usually if something is going to work at all, its going to be thinner oil with some sort of cleaning agents that gets the gunk/varnish out of the lifter.

XJPhoenix said:

It has Lucas in it now, but I never thought it'd make the ticking louder...

I love the Lucas stuff too. I've used a lot of their products, and the only ones I've not really been blown away by is the oil additive and the Fuel treatment. (Never really noticed a difference with either.)

Click to expand...

I use a mix of the thick Lucas and MMO in mine. The two combined quites my noisy valve train about 80 to 90% and increases my hot idle oil pressure by a good 10 psi.

Lucas has a product similar to MMO, in that it is thin and not thick designed for upper valve train and lifter lubrication designed to quite noisy lifters, just never used it. You might try the Lucas version of MMO.

If I had a sticky lifter, I'd probably want run something to clean it and fix the problem.

The additive you add depends on your definition of the problem.

My '95 has a fairly loud case of piston slap, I believe. Believe it or not, that snake oil Restore makes a huge noise reduction. I got the idea from an old Volvo mechanic who uses it in his high-miler Volvo engines. Don't know about all the compression claims, but my 4.0 runs alot quieter with it.

The thing that boggles my mind, is that I've poked around the engine with a mechanic's stethoscope and there were only two places that I could hear any similar ticking. The first was right on the fuel injectors, and the other was near the tranny.

I've had a loose torque converter before, and this sounds nothing like that. And the injectors ticking isn't overly loud at all. If it was a lower bearing (or more!) going bad, wouldn't it knock? Also, as if this wasn't confusing enough, it seems to vanish when I rev the engine!

Ugh.

I figure I'll try the cleaning agent when I can get some free time. It can't do any harm (besides to my wallet!) and could do the engine some good. If that doesn't clear it up, I'll pull the valve cover and plugs to see if there's some slop in the rockers. If there's no slop, I'm going to drive the b!tch until something blows up!

Sorry. Frustrated tonight.

have you used seafoam in other ways besides in the oil?

are you gonna run a cleaner with a lighter oil like it was suggested?

I noticed a differnet description recently in this thread. You say the noise is also heard from under the vehicle, and the sound goes away when rev'd?

Maybe the lifter idea is not the actual cause. Could be a bearing, or loose flex plate bolts. Both of these can be less audible under load (reving) as any "slack" is taken out when a load is present.

Check the flexplate 1st, its easier.

-JonB.

mandarin said:

I noticed a differnet description recently in this thread. You say the noise is also heard from under the vehicle, and the sound goes away when rev'd?

Maybe the lifter idea is not the actual cause. Could be a bearing, or loose flex plate bolts. Both of these can be less audible under load (reving) as any "slack" is taken out when a load is present.

Check the flexplate 1st, its easier.

-JonB.

Click to expand...

For some reason the sticking tappet (stuck lifter) noise in these jeeps sounds like it is coming from everywhere (in my experience). From what I have been told bearing noise does not come and go with changes in oil type or oil additives, or engine tmeperature and does not disapear at higher than idle rpms.

Loose flex bolts (mine anyway) make a God awful racket that sounds like a propeller shaft beating the stuffing out of a pile of steel chains, and got worse at higher rpm.

DaveKerwin: I'm going to try MMO first, and if that doesn't work I'll try Seafoam next. (On different oil changes.) I tried Seafoam once, in my old 1991 XJ, and shortly thereafter the Cat died and took the O2 Sensor with it. Coincidence? Most likely, but I'm a little reluctant to try it in my new Jeep.

Mandarin & Ecomike: I too had the loose bolts on my old XJ, and know that sound quite well. I'll also take a peep under the Jeep and wrench on the bolts, just in case. This tapping/clatter is just like a diesel; to the point where I was sitting at a light and suddenly realized that my tapping was gone! I blinked a few times, then looked around and noticed a bus had pulled up nearby. (Not loud, it just seemed to 'harmonize' with my little 4.0's chatter.)

The noise disappears when I'm driving along, and also takes a few seconds to come back when I stop. I think that the oil pressure spike when I hit the gas pumps up the lifters, and when the pressure drops again they take a few seconds to seep out. My pressure is about 43/23 (cold/hot) when idling, and about 47/40 when at 1500 rpms and above. (Tonight, the pressure was about 50!)

I didn't get out to Walmart today, and will try tomorrow. The saga continues!