Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Posting from a borrowed iPad from our campsite outside Beachport.

Out driving dunes when the paj started making a horrible rattle from the upper end. Suspected oil starved hydraulic lifter. No problem with oil pressure. Nursed back to campsite, noise getting quieter. Let sit to cool down, found oil on lower mark. Topped up oil, ran engine, noise was getting quieter. Then, sitting at idle and getting quieter it suddenly got very loud again.

I'm still thinking it's lifters, and it's time to replace them all. But what caused it to suddenly get noisy again while it was sitting at idle?

thinking I can drive it home (400 km). Is there something I'm not considering? Could it be something else, and driving it only doing more damage?

What are your thoughts?

Sounds alot like hydraulic lifters. Oil pressure is one cause, but clogged lines from poor servicing is another. You can buy oil additives and treatments which work reasonably well (did on the old falcons), or you can get a professional cleaning job done.

Thanks for that.

I used a lifter clean treatment before the last oil change, so I'm guessing that loosened some crap that dislodged while bouncing around the dunes.

It got quieter on the run into Beachport this morning, and I couldn't hear it at highway speeds. At Kingston, the noise was gone completely.

Picked up an engine flush on the way home, then used that as soon as I got home, then changed oil & filter again. No lifter noise on startup after the change (didn't always do it anyway).

At this stage, I'm thinking I'll do another engine flush & oil change before my next trip, and take flush, oil & filter along just in case. I'll find some pricing on new lifters, but I'm hoping I can defer that for a few more months. I've still got something loose somewhere in the front end, and found a cracked diff mount bush while I had my head under the front end. I guess that's next on the list.

Had problems with noisey lifters in my old 3.0 after the oil turned to caramel after popping the head gasket.
I did about 3 oil flushes, each after about 2000km, which helped, I think. Got slightly better each time. The clincher was adding some additive you put in with the new oil (I tried a couple of different types, first one made no difference).
The type that magically made the engine quiet was Pro-ma MBL8. Highly recommended.

More info here: http://fueloiltreatments.com.au/Oil.html

mmm..ive bee having that same lifter issue for the last 6 months now. but as im on a tight budget at the moment i cant afford to repalce the buggers. ive bought those nulon e10 stuff which has helped but not for long. after a couple of wks the noise is usualy back. worse though is when ive left my paj to sit for a few days n go to turn it over the lifter noise is louder then quietens down once its warmed up.
hey pj-b where abouts did you buy that proma mbl8 gear from so i can try it out on my paj?

Hey born2run,
I'm in NZ, and I couldn't find it in stores, so I just ordered it online from an NZ online shop... Took a couple of days to turn up.
Google up a storm, see what you can find.

One other thing I forgot to mention before: The lifter noise was bad when cold, and also bad when really warm (like after 2 hours driving on a hot summers day). So I also put some thicker oil in as well, hoping to get the oil pressure up a bit. I did this at the same time as the MBL8, so can't really say whether it made any difference.

Funily enough, the place I bought my MBL8 from was the Mitsi dealer in town!!!


Worth a shot!

Just before I got rid of my 1994 3 ltr I tried an oil put out by Shell.

It was a thicker oil put out for older engines. Shell HX 3 20w/50.

Stopped the lifters making noise