V6 VZ oil light and lifter noise -- band-aid solutions?

[sleavz]

Hi guys,

A friend has a VZ workhorse with some issues -- I'm hoping a relatively inexpensive solution can be found, at least to bide some time and to avoid scrapping the car. Basically, the car has had the issue of requiring an oil top up every now and again. Just recently, oil light came on several times when driving (with the car warm).

I checked the oil and it was fine -- maybe even a little overfilled. As far as I know, the oil was regularly checked and never left to run dry.

The oil light is still coming on regularly when driven, and now what has been described as a tapping or lifter noise (?) that makes the car sound "like a tractor". Once again, these issues only present when the car is warm. The car has at least 250k on it (V6) and mechanically looked after otherwise. Regularly serviced with 5w30, which is what is in it now. The condition of the car is quite poor cosmetically, and so any major work is not really feasible, so to avoid scrapping, it seems worthwhile to at least see if it can be improved for the time being.

Any suggestions? I've had cars with tapping before (improved with running thicker oil), but no real flashing of the check oil light -- not sure if this suggests a larger issue.

Should I try suggesting a thicker oil like 10w40, 15w-40, 15w-50, 20w-50?
Trying the above with a lifter noise reducer additive?
Leave the 5w30 in there and just add the lifter noise reducer additive as a first point of call?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Cheers.

 

[Dozer31]

Hi
My calais was quite noisy and I added some morays heavy duty oil additive from supercheap it thick and sticky and great to quite top end noise .
Try that first or it may be an issue with your oil pick up in your sump as sometimes can can get blocked or even oil pump which is a big job to replace.

 

[wannaeatyourbrains]

The oil pickup is blocked. Remove the sump and clean it.

 

[sleavz]

Thanks for the responses. Happy to give the additive a go.

The oil pickup is blocked. Remove the sump and clean it.

Is it worth trying an engine flush first or is this going to dislodge the sludge and block the pickup further? Removing the sump seems like a lot of work.

 

[greenacc]

Thanks for the responses. Happy to give the additive a go.



Is it worth trying an engine flush first or is this going to dislodge the sludge and block the pickup further? Removing the sump seems like a lot of work.

Nothing beats doing a job properly.
Impossible to say if a flush would help though. There's also a rubber o-ring on the oil pickup pipe where it it bolted to the block. When the o-ring crumbles due to age the pickup can't suck oil up the pipe properly and the engine loses oil pressure, which could explain the noises.
If your mate is the mechanical type that could be a very worthwhile and cheap days work pulling the sump off.
I would never use 5W30 in an engine with those km on it. I use 5w40 in mine and it's done almost 290,000km and still runs like a new one.

 

[sleavz]

Nothing beats doing a job properly.
Impossible to say if a flush would help though. There's also a rubber o-ring on the oil pickup pipe where it it bolted to the block. When the o-ring crumbles due to age the pickup can't suck oil up the pipe properly and the engine loses oil pressure, which could explain the noises.
If your mate is the mechanical type that could be a very worthwhile and cheap days work pulling the sump off.
I would never use 5W30 in an engine with those km on it. I use 5w40 in mine and it's done almost 290,000km and still runs like a new one.

Thanks for the extra info. Unfortunately he's not, so I might take a look underneath at the O ring and the sump.

I might suggest the engine flush then as an early point of call before a further look. Given the noise and oil light, what oil would you recommend? Initially I thought a thicker oil might quieten things down, but obviously don't want to worsen things if it's a sludge issue.

 

[wannaeatyourbrains]

It will be a blocked pickup. One thing you can try is empty the oil. Then unscrew that yellow plastic thing on the sump and put some petrol in the bottom of the sump. Let it soak some, and shake the car back and forth to make it slosh. Then undo the sump plug and let it drain.

Nothing is going to beat ripping the sump off and cleaning it, but. The strainer on the pickup is in this bell housing kind of thing that covers a lot of the mesh. It gets caked, and is hard to clean even when you pull it out. When you try to clean it with the slosh method, the stuff just settles in it, and gets sucked straight up into the mesh again as soon as you start the car.

Removing the sump is pretty easy if you have car stands and a jack. There is a how-to in here. That is how I learned to do it. Just follow the instructions.

I always pull the harmonic balancer off, but the sump bolt behind the balancer is a short one that I read somewhere will let the sump drop if you undo it as far as you can. It is one of two short ones in the timing cover.

I still have not tried it yet to confirm.