3Y EDIT: about to put diesel and ATF in the oil. Stop me if I'm about to blow it up

[Ashh]

Hey guys,

I changed the head on a 3Y townace (what a crap engine... the head is obviously designed for a block with a bigger bore than the 3Y.), everything went together fairly smoothly. Started it up. Weird tapping sound.

Took the rocker cover off, all the rockers are getting oil and none have any 'valve clearance' (at all... no space at all... even though it's got hydraulic tappets shouldn't there be a little bit of play?).

The water pump bearing is smooth as butter. Any ideas?

Cheers
Ash

[Dazza]

There is no valve clearance with hydraulic lifters. The lifters have a spring inside them that compresses when you tighten down the rockers and then the space inside the lifter fills with oil.
Did the new head come with rocker arms too or did you use the old ones from the old head. If you used the old rockers they can sometimes rattle if they have a bit of wear on the end that touches the valve. You might have a sticky lifter causing the noise too.
The 3Y and 4Y head have the same combustion chamber shape but the 3Y has 86mm bore and 4Y has 91mm bore.

[Ashh]

Cheers mate. I reckon it's a sticky lifter as you said. Any ideas how to fix it? We did an oil flush. No good.

I googled it and saw running it with a quart of ATF or putting diesel through it?

[Dazza]

I might be worth trying the ATF because it has a lot of detergent in it. There are products that you can buy that are supposed to free up sticky lifters, but i have never tried them.
Its a pity that the head has to come off to change lifters because the best way would be to pull the lifters apart and clean them or replace them.

[Ashh]

Interesting. I'd heard of the ATF thing and the diesel thing. I'm literally about to go down and put 0.5L of diesel in with it. Have you had any success with the ATF fluid? I've got some of that as well and wasn't sure which route to go.

[Ashh]

plan is to take a bit of oil out, put 0.5L of diesel in. let it idle for a bit (5 ish minutes). Drain it, replace the oil with 0.5L of ATF as well. Maybe take it for a short spin around the block. (at this point I'm hoping the noise has gone away). Then replace the oil again, add some Wynn additive that supposed to quieten lifters and call it fixed.

Any huge problems? Am I about to blow up the engine?

[Ashh]

Update: Diesel seemed to do nothing. The ATF however after the short-ish drive (to the pub and back ) it seems to have fixed the tapping issue!

I'll replace it and fill it up with normal oil + wynn additive and hopefully keep it at bay.

Now just to fix the stalling issue.

[dnegative]

Throw in a bottle of lifer free from Supercheap next time