Bongo Fury

Hi Guys,

The van is starting to show its age, lots of little things starting to rear thier heads. Last week wipers this week excessively noisey top end. The top end has always been slightly more rattly on my 97 V6 in comparison to my 2001 V6, well they are different in age but only sepperated by 20k in miles which isn't alot for an engine in real terms. However they are really excessively noisey now. From my past mechanical experiance it sounds very much to me as though the hydrolic lifters are getting lazy.
Is there any oil addative that will help prolong the need for me to have the heads reconned? Or is this an indication of poor oil pressure?

Any suggestions?

cheers

There are additives that may help, tappets tend to stick in engines that are used intermittently like bongos often are. I would suggest some additive and a good run (having checked oil level and the state of your oil) to see if this cures it.

Sometimes a blowing exhaust manifold can sound like excessive tappet clearance, I had this on a motorbike I owned.

Russ

As the tappets are hydraulic, maybe an engine flush with half a litre of diesel added to the old engine oil (or use some propriety brand like STP ..Forte ..Wynn's or what have you), before changing to a fresh fully synthetic oil 'may' help ..

Had a similar problem where the engine on my 2000 V6 suddenly became much noiser. Tried an oil change and then added some Wynns additive as it sounded like noisy tappets/lifters. No better. The engine produced the same noise whether it was hot or cold, so I did not think it was a piston problem. Tried several garages to see what the problem could be and the final conclusion pointed to piston slap on number 6 cylinder (right hand bank at the rear). Looked into a rebuild but could not find anyone who had tried this and spares is a real problem. So in the end I had a fresh engine installed from a 2002 model which had done 33000 miles.
Got the old engine back and stripped it down just to see what had happened. This confirmed the problem with number 6 piston which had overheated at some point. Looking at the cooling system then that cylinder is the last one in the flow chain so is the most likely to suffer that problem. As far as i know the engine never had a problem with the coolant system, certainly no issues during the 5 years/30000 miles I have owned it.

The question on noisy tappets on the V6 as been asked many times, and your observation on the piston problems was also mentioned by a Bongo 'dealer'..

bongobits wrote:Hi just wondering if you have had any success with the noisy tappets?
Be careful before forking out on replacing the hydraulic tappets.
We have had some experience with the V6 models and normally the problem can lie with the piston skirts cracking which can sound exactly like a noisy tappet..
Try to get an exact diagnosis before spending your hard earnt cash.
Regards
Mark

Great amount of feed back, thanks to all. Will get the van to my local garage who does all my servicing. Last oil change wich was less than 3k miles ago had full synthetic oil as was advised that it would be a good thing to have. One other thing that I didn't mention and wonder if could be contributing to this is that the van is LPG converted.

Cheers

My V6 as a Romona LPG conversion and is fine ...

My Toyota as a Zavoli LPG system and it may be a coincidence as I 'think' she developed a 'click ...click' noise after her conversion .. maybe the injector solenoids (??) ..

Bear in mind that I am hard of hearing and have an hearing aid ...but I must say, when warmed up, particularly at tick over, to me the V6 is extremely quiet, only raising to a 'whoosh' when revving up, no tappets 'snick .. snicking'...

But .. on LPG, until fully warmed up, the tick over in traffic seems slightly slow ..I mean the the actual tick over .. not the rpm indicated on the rev. counter ...the engine seems to be a bit 'lumpy' and some times 'wobbles' and feels like it will stall .. not even speeding up when out of gear or with the A/C on, which, compared to my Toyota is strange ..

I have read on LPG forums that the 'iffy' tick over on the Mazda V6 is 'normal' and rights itself over time (maybe the ECU learning / mapping / correcting the variables ??)

Our '99 V6 has been noisy since we bought it 4 months ago... starts from cold outrageously noisy, and only quietens down slightly once it warms up. Otherwise runs like a dream. It has a Romano LPG conversion, with FlashLube (perhaps LPG conversions are more prone?). Having taken the cam covers off a month or so back, i couldn't see any obvious wear, and so put it down a stuck tappet. I'm wondering if the fact that I don't use it daily (it sometimes sits for a couple of weeks without being started) could even be making things worse.

I was planning to try a flush with some Wynn's Hydraulic Valve Lifter Treatment soon... let us know if you try anything similar and get good results, i've heard treatments like this tend to be a bit hit or miss... I've also heard a slightly lighter weight oil could help..?

J

So as a follow on from my previous post, and after 2,500km of happy motoring in between, the 'tappet noise' I was experiencing has been diagnosed as possible piston skirt/ring cracking... recently started getting a hideous misfire when warm, and some blue smoke. I suspect the next step will be to get a compression test done to confirm my fears, but, assuming the worst, can anyone offer any advice? engine change time? or just get the work done on the existing engine (and is it possible to get the necessary bits to fix the pistons at all? - will it all then need boring out to make the new bits fit?)?
I have reasons to suspect the worst, my last two (mazda e2000 camper, and then mazda 6) mazdas have failed catastrophically (cracked head and exploded turbo, respectively), so I've learnt to always expect the worst and most expensive possible outcome when it comes to mechanical issues! I'm keeping fingers and toes crossed for otherwise!

Doubt the LPG is causing the noise...
I have a v6 with about 90,000 on the clock and Romano LPG.....silky smooth and very quite...It did sound a bit tappity at one point but a dose of valve treatment gave instant results

Hi jamiehero,you can usually test the engine for piston slap/problems by killing the cylinders in turn.

Hi,

Haydon mentioned using valve treatment with good results. Any recommendations as to which products to go for? What was the one you used Haydon?

Cheers

Richard

Got it in Halfords.....I think it was Winns

Thanks for the advice Teenmal, I'll give that a try. Presumably the proceedure would be to disconnect each HT lead in turn and fire her up, and when the noise goes, i'm on the cylinder with the problem? only thing is, if it truly is piston 'slap', rather than the noise of the gases escaping from bore scoring or a leaky ring (oo er!), then would I not still hear the noise since the piston would still be moving up and down (and slapping side to side) in the cylinder?

presuming the worst, anyone got any ideas about how to go about sourcing a set of piston rings for the V6? I've seen them on ebay for the diesel, just not the v6...?

I also tried the Wynns oil flush as i had previously thought my noise was tappet related. ended up making things worse for me as i think maybe it flushed out the layer of oily rubbish around my faulty piston which had been previously keeping the misfire under control (I've heard stories about pouring a teespoon of oil down the affected plug chamber to help seal a leaky piston)! or maybe the oil flush/misfire starting at the same time was just coincidence....

Further to the above, has anyone on here ever pulled a piston out of the V6 engine?
Is it possible to do the job by just pulling the sump and head off, or does it require the whole engine/gearbox to come out?

Just trying to weigh up options of new engine vs rebuild, and garage vs me and a mechanic friend spending a couple of cold weekends on my driveway!