Noisy tappets & low oil pressure....

[dubninja]

Bit of a long story this but just hoping someone on here maybe able to help. Got a H plate mk2 8v on the weekend, 140k miles on it, it got abit of a decoke on the weekend as the chap who had owned it hadnt used it much in the past 3 years.

Everything was very quite engine wise, after i had done about 100 miles the oil warning light/buzzer intermittently kept coming on, also while heading home the tappets were getting a tad noisy. Did an engine flush and oi / filter change hoping it would solve the problem but it didnt. So last night i dropped the sump off to have a look at the oil pump, found the strainer in the pump was full (and i mean full!) of thin strips of silicone sealent!. Was sure that was the problem as there was hardly any room for oil to flow past. So this evening, i fitted a new pump from Eurocar Parts, as it seemed pointless fitting the old one back on.

So theres me, sure id sorted the problem out, only to find that when i refilled with oil and started it up, its making even more top end noise (sounded like a couple of tappets were rattling first time, now it sounds like they all are!) and the oil pressure light is flashing all the time!.

Anyone keeping up with the story??, What can it be, any ideas?

Cheers.....

[golfgti818]

Well i had the same thing noisey tappets vw suggested new oil pump rather than new tappets so let them replace the pump. When the car was returned tappets were noisier, They told me the more efficient pump ment higher oil pressure and that it seemed to knacker the tappets completely. They never told me why the oil warning was on but after new tappets fitted by them it was all fine.

[Dom H]

am i right in thinking that de-coking requires tyhe head to be removed?
if so it's possible that who ever did the job stood the head upside down and the tappets fell all over the floor. and he then replaced them in the wrong order, thus causing wrong spacing and noise

[dubninja]

No, the decoke was just taking it out for abit of a thrash .

Ive was told that the pump might not have been primed properly, so had the oil filter housing off tonight to fill the pump up from above. On start up the oil light stayed off!, and the topend was not as noisy, maybe the tappets were just on the way out like golfgti818 said.

Going to take pressure readings off the low / high pressure oil sensor points tomorrow, any idea what they should be reading???