Author Topic: Very loud noise (Read 6633 times)

Zulfiqar · « **on:** January 29, 2007, 01:52:08 pm »

the headlight switch on my golf toasted up and my battery ended up weak, tried to start it in the morning, long cranks but no start, eventually after the long exercise the engine sounded and felt dead - like no compression, starter spinning on no load.

So I pull started the golf with my freinds land rover discovery, and it caught with excessive lugging, The engine sounded as if it was running no oil, I think all lifters had collapsed, after driving around for 2 hours the noise was gone.

My question is that what can cause such crazy lifter noise. I have yet to come across a hydraulic lifter engine with this problem.

(btw my engine uses hydraulic lifters)

jtanguay · « **Reply #1 on:** January 29, 2007, 04:27:29 pm »

how cold was it??? sounds like some symptoms of bad glow plugs... on all diesels i've owned they will NOT start without the glow plugs coming on (unless its a really nice hot day) they MIGHT sputter a little bit... but that is all. (yep.. never had the LUXURY of owning a nice and tight diesel)

did you change the battery? sometimes battery's can crap out when stuff like that happens.. giving you weak cranks. these engines need good strong cranks to start otherwise they don't seem to build cylinder pressure and enough oil pressure to quiet noisy lifters... well at least on mine it seems that way :oops:

you may have some sludge in the oil or something... mine sounds like it has some bad lifters as well... but it's always seemed like that... and the thinner the oil i put in, the louder it gets. i've got 5w50 in there right now and when my car is fully warm its much quieter than with 15w40.. i love it! but seems a little bit sluggish... that extra 10 weight is probably making the motor work a tad bit harder which sucks on an already slow car.

i would have to suspect that you are using possibly too thin oil for the motor. i once poured in some 10w30 amsoil. best decision as the cold starting was better than ever. problem was the noises that the engine made... pretty scary if you didn't know wtf you are doing. it sounded really 'loose' but fired up relatively quick, and it must have added 2-3 hp because i could feel it really well. as long as you have good oil or 15w40 weight i wouldn't be too concerned with the noise... maybe get an oil pressure gauge to put your mind at ease. as long as your oil is topped off, and you have enough pressure, no need to worry

i've driven my car with a broken lifter.... it still ran pretty quick though!

Zulfiqar · « **Reply #2 on:** January 29, 2007, 05:10:27 pm »

a little history

I put in a permanent mechanical oil pressure gauge in the engine room to monitor oil pressure when needed, always shows 30 psi at idle.

I use Caltex Delo 400 SAE40 engine oil with either donaldson or mann filters, When I bought the car its engine was so dirty on the inside that I used 3 filters in a month.

the weather here is never below 10 degrees celsius and never above 45 degrees celsius, today was around 22 when this happened.

btw what battery do you people recommend, my golf has A/C (need it here)

Typrus · « **Reply #3 on:** January 29, 2007, 05:47:34 pm »

I'd recommend Schaeffer's Oil... VERY good stuff. On top of being a very high quality oil, its loaded with a special moly additive that'll help lifters, bearings, etc.

I'd recommend an Optima red top personally. Good cranking power and lasts a good while.

You can always run SeaFoam through the crankcase. It'll knock loose all kinds of garbage.

jtanguay · « **Reply #4 on:** January 29, 2007, 06:25:19 pm »

if your golf is a turbo then watchout for knocking crap loose into those lines. sometimes stuff gets clogged. if it was really gunky in there and took 3 filters to clean it out, i would definitely use some kind of detergency additive to clean that crap out. someone else's folish mistake is now your nightmare :x

your car should be fine even with a crappy battery. but you might as well get a nice big battery though as they have longest life span and can take a beating (a/c loves to suck the battery dry...) let me also recommend something to you... i put two and two together and found out why my a/c system stopped working. the system was fully discharged. the rad fan had stopped spinning because the resistor blew (the rad fan later died while i was on the highway after i bought it like that... good times). then the a/c system got super hot (but there is a hot a/c sensor that is supposed to kick the fan into the higher speed... don't know if it was working or not) and without an overheat shut off for the compressor, the system leaked out the freon, and the low pressure sensor kicked in and shut off the compressor, saving it from total destruction!!!

if your a/c stops working suddenly.. turn it off and inspect the resistor :wink: not trying to thread jack here.. just trying to give some useful tips so you don't end up ruining your expensive air conditioning system all because one stupid resistor!!!

i don't think running straight SAE40 oil in your car is such a good idea. the initial flow rate at any outside temp would be very poor... you can always mix oils to obtain the right weight that you want. at your temps 20w50 would be perfect!!! remember that you want to get oil flowing to your head asap from cold start. what are your initial cold start oil pres numbers???

Zulfiqar · « **Reply #5 on:** January 30, 2007, 01:32:06 am »

my initial oil pressure at cold start is abt 85 psi @2000 rpms, my car is NA.

Is running ATF in the crankcase a good idea to clean the engine.

As a fellow Golfer I would recommend donaldson, baldwin or Mann oil filters - really good quality, it will lock gunk in it and not flush it in bypass mode

smutts · « **Reply #6 on:** February 02, 2007, 05:58:41 am »

I don't like the ATF idea, but if the engine runs ok now, the death rattle you heard with the tow start was probably the diesel which collected in the cylinders and didn't ignite due to the slow battery, when the engine does start, the excess diesel pinks (pings?) and for a few seconds sounds like a hailstorm of hammers, the big cloud of smoke looks frigtening too, if it sounds ok now, and the headgasket didn't give, you should be ok.
Also with a low battery, the starter also kicks out of mesh, "whirrrrr?"

Zulfiqar · « **Reply #7 on:** February 05, 2007, 11:10:03 am »

hmm, then its checking the compression again.

btw what size starter cable does VW use, mine was all corroded so I used some old 30 mm welding cable to power the starter, my freind who is an electrician says that its useless, He says to use a cable with thick strands like mercedes diesels.

any ideas coz the huge welding cable looks funny in the engine bay

Black Smokin' Diesel · « **Reply #8 on:** February 05, 2007, 07:58:46 pm »

Quote from: Zulfiqar

hmm, then its checking the compression again.

btw what size starter cable does VW use, mine was all corroded so I used some old 30 mm welding cable to power the starter, my freind who is an electrician says that its useless, He says to use a cable with thick strands like mercedes diesels.

any ideas coz the huge welding cable looks funny in the engine bay

I went to my local auto parts store and got some gauge 1 wiring for the battery to the starter and gauge 4 for the starter to the alternator. The gauge 1 wire has pretty thick strands bit it doesn't really matter, it's lenght isn't long enough to make any difference. It made starting a lot easier in the cold but it also smoothed the idle.

Welding cable is a pretty good conductor, there's a good reason it isn't cheap.

Zulfiqar · « **Reply #9 on:** February 07, 2007, 09:45:00 am »

I put in 9mm cable (thick stranded) hitachi branded on my starter and 6mm fine stranded cable from the starter to alternator with pressed and soldered connections.

replaced the starter ground with same 8.5 mm cable (brown in color) - The starter spins faster now.

Im using an exide wet 96Ah battery capable of 225 CA - I think it doesnt have the oomph to spin the starter long enough.

Whats a good battery for this car (im using a denso 90 amp alternator) I can only get bosch silver or varta asia here - all others are crap

Zulfiqar · « **Reply #10 on:** February 07, 2007, 09:47:54 am »

I put in 9mm cable (thick stranded) hitachi branded on my starter and 6mm fine stranded cable from the starter to alternator with pressed and soldered connections.

replaced the starter ground with same 8.5 mm cable (brown in color) - The starter spins faster now.

Im using an exide wet 96Ah battery capable of 225 CA - I think it doesnt have the oomph to spin the starter long enough.

Whats a good battery for this car (im using a denso 90 amp alternator) I can only get bosch silver or varta asia here - all others are crap

jtanguay · « **Reply #11 on:** February 07, 2007, 10:02:12 am »

biggest battery you can get really... 800CCA battery if you can find one, will start your car right up at your temps no issues. guaranteed!

Zulfiqar · « **Reply #12 on:** February 10, 2007, 12:20:04 pm »

I finally got around the prob - the dipstick on my engine was a dodgy replacement someone did - I is about an inch short than usual - so I filled her with about 5 and a half litres of oil to reach the full mark - which is too much, forcing the lifters to foam up (same issue happens when I overfill my G13B suzuki cultus). replaced with new custom made benz dipstick matched with another golf 1.6D dipstick - the sump holds about 4 litres of oil now - starts up like a champ and the blowby has reduced substantially.

Golfs are rare as chicken teeth here, so you can imagine my agony of getting a dips sample

weird eh..

jtanguay · « **Reply #13 on:** February 10, 2007, 12:45:11 pm »

Quote from: "Zulfiqar"

I finally got around the prob - the dipstick on my engine was a dodgy replacement someone did - I is about an inch short than usual - so I filled her with about 5 and a half litres of oil to reach the full mark - which is too much, forcing the lifters to foam up (same issue happens when I overfill my G13B suzuki cultus). replaced with new custom made benz dipstick matched with another golf 1.6D dipstick - the sump holds about 4 litres of oil now - starts up like a champ and the blowby has reduced substantially.

Golfs are rare as chicken teeth here, so you can imagine my agony of getting a dips sample

weird eh..

yea very weird! good call checking the oil fill though... the turbo motors hold about 4.7 litres I believe... I found out that my dipstick is the wrong one too... it shows up about half way on my dipstick with 5 litres... :shock:

burn_your_money · « **Reply #14 on:** February 10, 2007, 04:40:48 pm »

perhaps my dipstick is wrong as well, I should put this on my to-check list.
Thanks for updating us