Ticking noise from KA24E?

[young-gunn]

so the past few days have been very cold. I started my pickup while leaving college yesterday, it took a long time to get any oil pressure, as it did that morning. but it starting ticking. The next day the same thing happened, and it continued ticking. Within a few miles of driving a whirring sound started and over the past day day it got worse. I had a few techs at work look at it with me, they all figured a toasted pulley bearing, spun bearing or some sort of valve damage.

Today I took both belts off, and the noise was still there. I listened with a stethescope and the noise seemed to be coming from the front of the head. I pulled off the valve cover, no loose parts, timing chain was tight, nothing that looked wrong. Changed oil and filter then put it back together. The noise seemed to go away. I threw in 300 ml of stop leak (I have a small oil pan leak and I dont want to have to drop the pan) and drove it out of my garage. less than a mile of driving and the ticking noise faintly came back. The whirring noise however is gone. What could be my problem here?

I figure one of these few things may be my problem1. oil is too thick for the weather with the new oil/stop leak.2. Something is blocking oil from getting to the top of the head.3. Timing chain is coming in contact with guide at an unwanted point.

Any opinions or ideas would be helpful at this pointThanks

[RT]

according to some here mine is timing chain guides worn out. mine does it on start up and stops in 5-10 seconds, is worse and last a little longer when real cold. Also check oil level, when towing a trailer for 500 miles mine used about 1 qt of oil and ticked pretty loud. topped oil and it stopped. with 160k mine uses no oil that can be seen on stick between oil changes but under that load for so long it used almost 1 qt.

[Rev_D21]

Try using 10w30 to see if that helps clear it up.

[young-gunn]

okay, we diagnosed it today to be the timing chain. Now before I go tear this all apart, can I just tighten the tensioner up a little (when I had the valve cover off it had a little slack) and see what that does? Is there a way to tighten it without removing the timing chain cover? If that doesnt help, what should I change? The guides? My truck is my only registered vehicle right now and I need it tomorrow and saturday. I called about parts and all of my timing parts are special order and would take a while to get here. It's rattling pretty loud already and I dont want to wear anything through and do any more damage.

[Rev_D21]

Sorry dude, tensioner is operated by oil pressure, no adjustments are possible.

[young-gunn]

So, the lack of oil pressure would have not made it pump up fast enough, and when it did finally come in contact, the chain broke the tensioner if I'm not mistaken? I cant order the kits in canada apparently, but would I be able to try replacing the tensioner and go from there? Or are there other parts it would have damaged? I dont want to throw a ton of parts at this as it's my daily driver for going to college and I'm trying to build my 240. it sucks.

EDIT: I was looking at my haynes manual, and I figure I will order the guide that the tensioner pushes on. Gauranteed thats pretty rough by now too.

EDIT#2: My parts list just went up to, Tensioner, Tension Guide, Slack Guide, Oil Pan Gasket, and maybe front seal. How hard would it be to take the oil pan out completely? The haynes manual says to lift the engine, but from looking at it, I dont see why it wouldnt come out the back easily. I am starting to hear a whirring noise again. I hope I dont end up rubbing through the coolant ports. I dont know exacty what part is damaged or causing the noise.

Modified by young-gunn at 4:23 PM 3/12/2009
Modified by young-gunn at 5:47 PM 3/12/2009

[JC87HB]

I had the same thing happen to me man. I broke the engine down far enough to see the timing chain. One of my guides had broken off and was at the bottom stuck in my oil pan... the ticking noise came from the Chain hitting my guide... so i welded the pan back up and replaced the chain and guide and the sound is gone... but i got the Z24i NapZ motor. so idk but thats my experience.

[young-gunn]

okay I guess the chain guides are a must then. I will order these parts in the morning. Kind of bad timing, my truck had 2 hit and runs in the past week and I am getting it evaluated in the afternoon. They may fix it, they may write it off, I dont know. I dont want to do this job and have them call me to say that it is a write off. I cant really push it any longer now though. The rattling is loud and I dont want to do any engine damage if I do still have it in the end.

[JC87HB]

if it makes you feel any better my truck is a 87 and it has 76k miles... it was my dads and he gave it to me awhile back.... His smart self drove it with that bad chain/guide for at least 2 oil changes.... but i wouldnt wait personally.... Best of Luck man!

[young-gunn]

I'm curious though, why would this happen as soon as I had low oil pressure on a cold start? Could it be possible I have something in the pan that I'm not getting the oil up fast enough? Mind you it could be a guide laying in the pan...

[Rev_D21]

Here's a list of the parts I replaced when I did my chain and guides.

13028-8B000=Chain13070-40F06=Tensioner13091-40F15=Guide13510-53J10=Crank Seal13075-40F10=Bolt13021-53J00=Crank Sprocket13024-40F00=Cam Sprocket15066-1S710=O-Ring15066-1S701=O-Ring13085-40F10=Guide15066-21001=Oil Pump GasketB1010-40F27=Water Pump Kit15028-55Y00=Oil Filter (x2)22401-30R15=Spark Plug21200-0C811=Thermostat13270-F4000=Valve Cover Gasket

I replaced the belts while I had it apart. Obviously fluids are needed as are tools. Low oil PSI might have allowed the chain to hit the guides breaking them up into pieces. It's hard to tell without pulling the valve cover. If the plastic guide is missing on the distributor side of the motor you should replace the parts I listed.

[young-gunn]

okay, so a 2 night job, I removed the front cover on my engine to find two small pieces where my slack guide shouldve been. I pulled off my oil pan and removed about 30 pieces of timing chain guide. I replaced the slack guide, tension guide (had grooves cut in it, worth the $12 to replace), front seal, and oil pan gasket.put it all back together and worked perfectly. I have some pics on my phone from the job. I will put them up here in a few days.

[young-gunn]

okay for those of you who have not had the fun of having to do your timing chain, here's what I had.from the top you can see there SHOULD be 2 guides, my slack one wasnt there anymore

This is what the guide should look like

I found my old guide in my oil pan.

[Rev_D21]

That's exactly what mine looked like.