Engine clunking!

[Wayne]

There was no metal at all in the pan when we had the sum off last time.Take it theres no real way to confirm it is the small end unless we start pulling pistons out yeah?

Yes to be honest, piston / rods out and see if you have any play.

Try and post a video up of the noise, might help

[danny_p]

tryed sliceing the oil filter open and looking at the eliment for sparkels yet ?

[DOA]

We just put some 10w40 in there so i wouldve though that would be thick enough.The oil that came out was shot to pieces so i was hoping that would work but no difference.We thought the tappets at first but its too noisy for them i think,i mean theyre hydraulic and theyve got like 0.4m of movement so theres nowhere for that clunk to come from?

0.4m of movement eh? Thats a lot  !!! The Haynes book of lies suggests 0.1mm of free play so it might be worth investigating the tappets a bit closer. I know when tappets get really stuck they sound absolutely terrible (mine sounds worse than a fiesta with a X-flow engine in it at times and I have had Peugeot ones that needed re-building make the engine sound like a tractor before now and that was down to me not changing the oil and checking the level for too long) and when they get old and gummed up/knackered they tend to leak down at idle/when the engines been stopped without some thick ass oil in there. Does the noise dissapear when you rev the engine (not good practice i know but the added oil pressure normally pumps them back up if you have the bottle to do it  ).

As suggested, get a vid of it put up.

[Carnie]

0.4mm was a guess haha i couldnt even tell if they had any give when pressing them so i couldnt measure.The clunking noise is constantly there while revving the car,speeds up etc with the revs.However if you give it a tiny bit of gas it does quiten down a little but thats about it.Nah we didnt check the filter,just the oil and the sump.Think it got binned there but might be able to scavenge it out to have a look.
How do the tappets make such a racket anyway when they get gunked up?From looking at them etc i couldnt tell how they could cause much noise.

[danny_p]

the hillbilly way to check for duff tappets is to start the engine with the cam cover off and poke the tappets down with a bit of stick  if they go quiet ther knackerd

[Carnie]

Really haha hmm i dunno,with the cam moving is there that much room to get something in there?Also theyre being constantly compressed between the cam lobes and the valve spring so what will pressing on them with a stick do?

[danny_p]

you push the edge of the tappet, to the side of the cam lobe. 

also there not constantly compressed between the valve sping an the cam lobe there is free play in there.   pokeing them with stick effectivly adds some pre load to the tappet so when you press down on the tappet with lots of free play it makes the noise change.  on an 8v i probly woldn't bother tho id just swap the lot for a known good set thats hanging around or a new set,  but when you get 16, 20 , 24, 30, 32 and 40 v enignes with a ticky tappet it gets more and more usefull to be abel to track down the offending one

[Carnie]

I ll maybe give that a bash then and rule the tappets out before we go stripping the bottom end.

I wish id never offered to help haha