Noisy Lifters - out of ideas...

[TulsaTurbo]

I have a 89 240sx. Okay so going straight to the point... Timing chain and tensioner have been replaced.

Lifters were making a terrible metallic tapping noise. Ran a quart of atf in engine for 15 minutes to possibly clean out the lifters and passages. then ran mobil 1. No help, metallic tapping from the lifters got louder.

I ordered all new rocker arms for the ka24e and replaced them, cleaning out the rail for the rocker arms to make sure no small dirt particles remained to clog the new lifters. The car ran fine and quiet for 2 days, then a lifter started tapping again.

I checked the oil pressure. It registered a little lower than what the manual stated so I replaced the oil pump. Oil pressure is now correct as specified in the manual.

A Lifter continues to make a metallic tap. I removed the valve cover and located the one collapsed lifter, removed the rocker arm and checked the passages for blockage and pumped the lifter with oil as specified in the manual. I put everything back together and the engine returned to a nice quiet idle, but this only lasted for half the day before the tapping returned.

Anyway I went ahead and repeated what I did in the paragraph above but this time it was 2 different lifters that did not pump up. After putting it all back together again and running the engine for awhile, the tapping continues.

I'm fed up with this problem and have run out of ideas. This is my first nissan and I'm starting to hate owning one, can someone please help me out .....?

[Blazin Hondas]

Replace the lifters...all of them. That should fix the problem. Its a pain in the butt, but it should work.

[themadscientist]

the lifters are done, your cams are probably not to happy either. You might want to think about throwing in a nice performance cam and new lifters. Don't do just lifters, the cam and lifters wear into each other. If you just replace one or the other the setup will wear out quickly.

[TulsaTurbo]

The rocker arms and lifters are one unit and sold as a unit for the Ka24e, so as I stated in my original post, I have replaced all my rocker arms / lifter assemblies...