flushing oil

[uphill racer]

My road-rally car - MG ZR 105, Rover K series 16V in its "core" 1400cc guise - tried to eat its valves a couple of weeks ago (on the way to the start of a rally, which was - erm - annoying). It managed to bend most of the inlet valves, with the result that I acquired a second-hand head - no provenance known but claimed to be a low mileage late (2005) model - and fitted it.

It fired up and ran fine, with the caveat that it's quite tappety - it's a crisp clear single 'tick', rather than a blurry noise that you'd associate with several individual sources. The engine has hydraulic tappets and to me it sounds as if one of the tappets isn't pumping up - either the oilway blocked or the tappet itself seized in its chamber. I took the cam cover off again, but short of running it with the top off (which rapidly gets very messy as it'll distribute most of its oil all over the engine bay, workshop and on the watcher) it's hard to see how I can find out if any of them are seized.

I've just bought some flushing oil and plan to stick that in, run the engine as per instructions and then drain/refill. Then probably change that oil out fairly quickly afterwards too.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

[Galileo]

Last time I had similar I ran the engine up to temp and then quickly whipped off the cam cover and it was obvious by hand which one (or 2 in my case) could be pressed down, the others were all solid. They actually cleaned up okay and went back in, had just got gummed up.

[uphill racer]

Hi and thanks.

Funnily enough, when I went to the workshop intending to put the flushing oil in, I started it up to drive it into the unit (it lives outside the back doors) and the ticking had gone! Ran it up to temperature, stopped it, re-started it... sweet as a nut.

So I haven't actually done the flushing oil thing yet. I can and will do an ordinary oil and filter change come what may - the oil hasn't done many miles at all since the last change, but it's been in there for about 9 months, so it'll get changed no matter what. If it hadn't been ticking before, I wouldn't have worried about flushing it out, but I think your trick of whipping the cam cover off and pressing on the tappets is a good call, I'll try that one tomorrow.

Thanks again

[harvey]

So I haven't actually done the flushing oil thing yet.

Good. Don't do it.

[Carledo]

What Harvey said!^^^^^^

Flushing oil often does more harm than good!

Steve

[uphill racer]

ok, I get the message thanks guys.

Meanwhile my swanky diff for the silver car has just returned from Grippers. Gawd but it looks $exy. Everything new apart from the planet gears so that's - erm - £1250.

(sob)

[uphill racer]

ok, I get the message thanks guys.

Meanwhile my swanky diff for the silver car has just returned from Grippers. Gawd but it looks $exy. Everything new apart from the planet gears so that's - erm - £1250.

(sob)

[uphill racer]

ok, I get the message thanks guys.

Meanwhile my swanky diff for the silver car has just returned from Grippers. Gawd but it looks $exy. Everything new apart from the planet gears so that's - erm - £1250.

(sob)

[Carledo]

Is that twitch on the submit button from the size of the bill mate?

Steve

[Carledo]

I've had your rattly tappet problem a few times on K series. Sometimes they need to run through a couple or more warm up cycles before they shut up completely.

Steve

[Karlos]

I have used Wynn's engine flush on on an old MX5 that had similar problem of a few noisy tappets. Apart from stopping the rattling there were no further effects of using it.
I used it immediately prior to an oil change. This was in an engine with 130000 miles on the clock and it was still quiet another 10k on. I am interested in anyone else's experience especially any negative results.

[dollyman]

I have seen flushing oil and the additives destroy some engines in the past, personally i would never use it
Just regular oil changes using good quality oil is all you need to do.
Sometimes noisy hydraulic tappets sort themselves out as uphill racer has found.
At one time if you fitted new ones, it was best to leave them in a tray of oil overnight to prime them.
Glad its sorted though
Cheers, Tony.

[uphill racer]

Is that twitch on the submit button from the size of the bill mate?

Steve

It's a t-t-t-t-t-t-twitch that I get from t-t-t-t-t-t-time to t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-time...

[uphill racer]

I have seen flushing oil and the additives destroy some engines in the past, personally i would never use it
Just regular oil changes using good quality oil is all you need to do.
Sometimes noisy hydraulic tappets sort themselves out as uphill racer has found.
At one time if you fitted new ones, it was best to leave them in a tray of oil overnight to prime them.
Glad its sorted though
Cheers, Tony.

Thanks, Tony. Ordinarily I just use good quality oil and regular changes in the rally car and hillclimber, wouldn't ever bother with flushing oil. In this case though, as per the OP, this was a head that came to me with unknown provenance - and apart from the chance of some polystyrene in the oilways ** - I did suspect it had been sitting for a little while, so any heavier components of the oil in it may have started to thicken/solidify. So hopefully running clean oil through it would eventually clear the tappets and allow them to pump up properly.

** the head came in a big cardboard box, packed out with chunks of expanded polystyrene. No bag or any other wrapping. The seller hadn't thought that the polystyrene would shed individual beads while handled in transit, so when I took it out the cam chamber was full of loose beads! I fished out everything I could find but was then worrying about how many beads were still stuck somewhere... I've run it up a few times now to get it all the way up to temperature, in the hope that the combination of heat and oil will break any remaining polystyrene down before it does any damage

[Toledo Man]

I agree with Steve that most oil flushes don't do what they're supposed to. When I did the last oil change on my C4 Grand Picasso I used BG109 which does exactly what it is supposed to do. I used Total Quartz oil along with a genuine Citroën oil filter and I'll be using genuine service parts in the future so I won't need to do an oil flush again. The price was on a par with good quality aftermarket items so it was a no-branier really. The car is still fine 3 months on.