Any experience with a LOUD (lifter?) tick after head gasket/valve job?

[bennyfizzle]

So I have another issue:

When I got the head back from the machine shop, a few of the cam caps were "upside down" meaning the engraved numbers (A1-7 and E1-7) were upside down. As shown in the 2nd pic below. The thing is the cast numbers (7SWxxx) all line up in this orientation, so I'm thinking the machine shop might have went by those, which is improper. So now I'm not sure if I should be installing them the way machine shop installed them as I drove the car this way so they have worn-in a bit in this orientation, or if I should install them the way they were originally installed, or should have been. And that's assuming that the machine shop made the mistake and installed them improperly.

The other scenario is the machine shop installed them how they received the head, and someone in the past installed them improperly. And at this point I've mixed them up and don't remember exactly how the machine shop had them anyways. This leads to the final picture, which you will note one of the cam caps is cast "6SWxxx"....the rest are "7SWxxx" and I'm not even sure what to make of that.

Pic showing that the casting numbers and engraved numbers vary across the caps, also note the engravings are different font sizes/depths/styles...wat?:



This is how the caps were installed from the machine shop, this is the only one on the exhaust side that is "upside-down"



And different casting numbers...this is the only one that starts with 6.



help

edit: I just realized that the upside-down cap, "A2" is the cap under which the pair of lifters failed. Coincidence?

[uconnr]

The casting differences are probably inconsequential since these carriers and caps get aligned honed after assembly (guessing here).. I'd be hesitant to keep running them installed incorrectly unless they were refurbished in those positions. How do the cam journals look? Best bet would be to take the carriers/caps to the machine shop and have them check the bores for roundness and alignment.

[bennyfizzle]

The journals have what I would consider normal wear for the age of the motor (~100k).

[DeansBimmer]

Unless the machine shop line honed the cam trays, then reinstall them in the correct orientation.

Sent from my iPhone on company time

[bennyfizzle]

I spoke with the machine shop and they, of course, said "however we put it back together is how it was when it got to us, we turn the cams over by hand to make sure they spin freely before we return the heads to customers" and insisted that I reinstall the caps the way they had them installed. (wrong?)

Not sure what to do.

[Stück]

To be perfectly honest those look to be a mismatched set. The E/A stampings are from different/size tools even.

I would get a whole new matched set from a donor engine if you're seriously worried about it. Trays w/ caps.

[bennyfizzle]

It's back together and running well aside from a CPS with frayed wiring

Valvetrain felt fine turned over by hand, and hasn't made a peep in a couple hundred miles.

I'll be doing my first event with the car in over a year this saturday, so we'll see how it holds up to some real abuse.

[VaTechE36]

Congrats on getting the car back together Benny, I made some decent progress on mine last night too. Just need to double check some things, reinstall the VANOS and hopefully be buttoned up on the valvetrain side...until I try to start the car and likely find I did something wrong...

Good luck on Saturday!

[bennyfizzle]

Thanks a lot!

Also, if anyone's ever searching and needs something to think about in regards to a 1222 code and hesitation under load above 3k.....check your crank sensor! Changing plugs and cleaning the maf probably helped as well, but my sensor tested slightly out of range for resistance (~600ohm, spec is 550ohm +/- 10%, and resistance increased with temperature which is bad), but also had a big slice in the harness.

[jakermac]

So did you just free up the 2 stuck check valves/balls on the stuck lifters or did you change out one/some lifters?

[bennyfizzle]

Installed two new lifters in place of the bad ones, seems great so far. I really only need the motor for the rest of the season, and if it's still running I'll be selling it cheap, or parting out otherwise.

Pulls hard/sounds good, what more could I ask for? (longevity aside)

In all honestly I like the idea of building a smaller bore stroker with my crank and whatnot for FI. We'll see.

[Cainna]

They are precision fit, the slightest variant can make a click as they are loaded by the valve spring
1 valve stem is loaded (not dead centre leads to lifter not dead centre leads to camshaft not aligned dead centre over lifters 🍷= clickinklink until heat and oil pressure arrives
Take off timing belt loossen all bolts and use a gauage to set the camshaft
Probably is too much toward the timing side
Then hold in place until torqued down

Allow me to preface this with a little background info. This is a ~90k S52, began pressurizing cooling system last June and I did not have the time or resources to repair at the time so it sat until early this year. Brought the assembled head (cams in) to the machine shop to be checked, cleaned, and decided to go with a valve job while I was at it. It should be noted that no significant amount of material was taken off the head, it was no warped or cracked, and they merely surfaced it.

After I got the head back from the machine shop, I timed the motor in and rotated by hand. Motor hung up around 270 degrees into the first rotation, so I backed it back to TDC, verified timing once again, reassembled and tried turning the motor over by hand yet again. Once more I was met with resistance in the same spot. I applied a bit more pressure, heard a pop, but then the motor turned over nicely by hand. I know that sounds a bit funky, but everything in the head looked fine, turned over nicely by hand with no weird spots, and after buttoning everything up the first start went well.

This past Friday I finished the car, got the cooling system bled and got the car up to temp. There was a little bit of typical hydraulic lifter ticking that went away in a minute or two, and the head was quiet. Yesterday I fired the car up to put some street miles on it, still quiet, and left my shop. I stopped at a gas station about a 1/4 mile away and put some fresh fuel in it, and as I was leaving a loud tick developed. No stumbling or hesitation, no other symptoms really, just an alarmingly loud ticking. I hopped out, and tried to track down the tick. It seems to be coming from the head, though I'm having trouble pinpointing where exactly. Here's a video I took shortly after:



Since then, I've put about 50 miles of mixed driving on the car, even some 'spirited sack-busting'. The motor feels fantastic, makes smooth, consistent power throughout the range. But still, this loud ticking persists.

Additional details:
Oil pressure is great, and exactly as it was before the hg job/vanos rebuild.
The check-valve in the head is in place
Using Rotella T6 5w-40 oil
I've tried the 'bleeding procedure' of holding revs at 3k with no load for one and three minute intervals with no change in tone or frequency.
As you can see in the video, the sound is dependent only on speed of the motor and not load.

I'll be doing a compression test and pulling the valve cover soon to check for obvious signs of failure. After speaking with the machine shop and describing this scenario, they think I may have bent a valve when I was turning the motor over by hand. I doubt highly that it would take as little force as I applied turning the motor over to bend a valve, and I can't see how that would be possible. I followed guides on the subject of timing these motors exactly, and the motor runs perfectly aside from the tick. I asked them how the lifters were handled, and they said the only thing they would have done is drain the oil from the lifters to make sure a valve wasn't being held open (??) and cleaning them. Two other M50 heads were done within the same week as mine at the same shop (friends of mine), and have no problems or lifter tick.

I'm posting merely to ask for any applicable experience in the matter, and maybe some words of advice/past experience. If nothing else feel free to post about how loud my head is.

Thanks,
Ben

[olemiss540]

5 YO thread bump for your first forum post! Welcome to the group Cainna.

[broo102]

I've had some experience tracking down persistent ticks. Assuming your lifters are good, I've seen debris left over from the machining process work its way through the galleries and lodge right before the lifters (or in the lifters themselves) causing a tick. Also, I've seen stretched cam tray studs, and stripped out studs that wouldn't allow the caps to be tight, causing a tick. Since you had some resistance when Turing it over by hand I might suggest that there was something lodged in a chain or something nearby that worked its way into a position that impedes oil flow to a lifter(s).

You would have to REALLY crank on it by hand to bend a valve, they're pretty tough.

Sent from my iPhone on company time

Just did a head gasket on my 02 325i. I had ONE cam stud that wouldnt come to 11 ft. lbs. bit seemed snug. Now I have the ticking noise. You think that is it?
Thanks Broo

[NeilM]

Just did a head gasket on my 02 325i. I had ONE cam stud that wouldnt come to 11 ft. lbs. bit seemed snug. Now I have the ticking noise. You think that is it?
Thanks Broo

11 ft-lb is a very modest tightening torque. If the affected stud won't hit that then you have a problem that needs to be addressed, likely with a thread inset.

Neil