Exhaust leak? Mistimed? Lifter tick?

[jsrnsis]

I have yet another vague issue. My car has what I can only describe as a "louder engine" once it's warmed up. I don't expect it to be silent, but it just doesn't sound right to me. There's also a ticking sound present, but not as audible as when I had completely stuck lifters on my 94.


I've had the head out to have the stem seals replaced, I re-used the exhaust studs and nuts after chasing the threads, and I used a 1 piece exhaust gasket.
I had the lifters sitting in oil while I had the head rebuilt, but I didn't think to put them back in the right order, or to make sure they were all freed up by soaking them in solvent first.
I don't think the oil sump o rings were ever done on this car.
Or the timing, for some reason I decided to take the cam sprockets off the cams, and I tried my best to get everything lined up the way it should be when I put it back together. This car also has a mechanical tensioner, which I had a hard time setting while following the instructions.

I guess I'm just trying to see if anyone can recognize this sound, it sounds different to the other Volvos, and more like my dad's old v8 explorer.

[jreed]

I listened but couldn't really hear anything that sounded abnormal to me.... sorry I couldn't offer any input.

[jsrnsis]

I listened but couldn't really hear anything that sounded abnormal to me.... sorry I couldn't offer any input.

Well thanks for listening to my wild goose chase.

Yeah it's a hard sound to capture on video, and a hard sound to describe. It's just, loud. Our 97 GLT you can barely tell it's running, and there's no distinct "put put put" sound of the engine, more of a single uniform engine noise. There is a light ticking noise that becomes really audible when driving with the windows down that gets reflected off cars parked off the side of the street or a guardrail.

I taped up a shopvac to the exhaust and took the turbo heat shield off with the engine at least 8 hours cold, but I couldn't feel or hear any air escaping, and it kept building enough pressure to blow the shopvac off the tailpipe. So if there is an exhaust leak, it must be miniscule. All the manifold nuts were good and tight too.
I also checked my timing and it was still dead on, it was 85° yesterday and the tensioner indicator was between the two "ears" but a little towards the right side, as I think it should be. When the engine turns on, it moves all the way to the left, and then slowly back towards the right as the engine heats up. This might be normal.

Another thing with this engine is that it seems to get a lot of oil in the intake plumbing and onto the intake valves, and oil seeps out of the short rubber coupler on top of the turbo, past the hose clamp and onto the pipe that runs over the engine. The turbo shaft feels really tight with no play from what I can feel, but I don't know if the seals are bad, or if it's a PCV problem. I did the PCV when I did the head 10,000 miles ago. The inside of the intake is coated in wet oil and the intake valves already have some crud build up, despite the port injection. Somehow the throttle plate is pretty clean.

[jreed]

Could the clicking noise be coming from the fuel injectors?

[scot850]

Some fuel injectors are noisy as suggested above. I'm not sure what car you are talking about here. Volvo change from hydraulic to solid lifters. Can't remember what year or if specific engines were affected by that. The solid lifters are noisier than the hydraulics.

My young friend with the 96 850 NA 10v thought the lifters were bad after the car had been sitting for 3 months. We ran the car down the road for maybe half a mile and suddenly the engine went quite as the lifters re-filled with oil. They had drained down over time. VW/Audi cars used to be terrible for this in the 90's.

Neil.

[jsrnsis]

Could the clicking noise be coming from the fuel injectors?

Some fuel injectors are noisy as suggested above. I'm not sure what car you are talking about here. Volvo change from hydraulic to solid lifters. Can't remember what year or if specific engines were affected by that. The solid lifters are noisier than the hydraulics.

My young friend with the 96 850 NA 10v thought the lifters were bad after the car had been sitting for 3 months. We ran the car down the road for maybe half a mile and suddenly the engine went quite as the lifters re-filled with oil. They had drained down over time. VW/Audi cars used to be terrible for this in the 90's.

Neil.

This is a 98, it has the hydraulic lifters. I probably should have cleaned them when I had them out of the car for the head.
It could be the injectors. I actually ended up doing the 5/8 PCV upgrade on this car, noticed a little bit of crud on the intake valves, noticed that 4 of the intake ports had a distinct clean spot where the injector had been firing, while the 5th lacked this. I changed the injectors out to some rebuilt ones I had, and I think the clicking sound wasn't as loud.
I did a compression test out of curiosity and got:
#1- 190 #2-190 #3-190 #4-190 #5-185
The battery was on a charger, but could have been getting a bit tired. But still good numbers to see on a low pressure turbo from what I've read.
There was still the "put-put-put-put-put" sound coming from the engine bay, and using a funnel pushed into a heater hose, it's coming from the back of the engine, and seems to be coming from the cylinder 3 area. I did have the heat shield on, but the sound was coming from between the engine and heat shield, not from between the heat shield and firewall. With a regular mechanics stethoscope, the exhaust lifters on cylinder 5 are much louder than any others.

I forgot to do a glove test when I started the car back up, I was distracted since it barely started, was misfiring, sputtering etc. I had put the plate for the cam sensor on upside-down.

Maybe I'll have to try a smoke test on the exhaust to find any tiny leaks in the manifold area and a seafoam treatment to the oil before the next oil change to try to clean out the lifters.

[scot850]

It is not uncommon for the exhaust manifold to loosen, or the gaskets to crumble with time.

Good Luck!

Neil.

[rguzz]

I agree the whole drive train sounds, well, noisy. Lifter tick doesn't seem to be predominant noise, did you say you checked the oil pressure along the way? Pick up tube 0 rings are as you noted in the equation but that tick if isolated is pretty hard to miss. I assume trans and diff aren't contributing. Look for simple things without going too deep. I'd remove serpentine belt and see if anything changes which will as you know eliminate a number of possibilities. It should be quieter overall for sure. Exhaust leaks worse when cold usually. Doesn't sound like injectors alone. Hah, could be almost "anything." Air leak seems like something to check for without doing too much other, especially if IM has been off recently. It's easy to miss align, tear that gasket especially at the front of the motor and a tiny issue there results in engine running like crap. Check for vacuum leak next if not already done.

[jsrnsis]

Resurrecting this thread with some results.
There was talk in the "what did you do today" thread about a gasket for the turbo to downpipe flange, but I figure I'll continue here.



Using the smoke machine in the tailpipe led nowhere, so I used a bore scope to find which cylinder had open exhaust valves and applied the smoke machine there after taking the heat shield off. I saw some minor wisps, but the tailpipe needs to be blocked to actually build the pressure, despite very little smoke making it's way out that way. I used a rubber glove stretched over the end of the pipe, and saw smoke coming out of the bottom of the turbo-downpipe flange, from the wastegate pivot point, and some from the top of the manifold-turbo flange. Seems none was coming from the exhaust manifold gasket itself.

It feels good finally seeing results, but I need to figure out a way to approach this.

Car also will constantly send a thin white smoke out of the tailpipe at idle in the cold or wet. I always attributed it to the relatively large exhaust system with two mufflers, no evidence of a head gasket leak.

[scot850]

They can store a lot of condensation in the systems and it can take a good long run to blow it all out.

Neil.