Guys, i have very noisy tappets since blowing my head gasket.

When i stripped the engine down, i left the tappets upside down for the old watery oil to out drain out, ive since left them submerged in new oil overnight, put it all back together with new Multi Shim gasket from burtons and they sound crap,

Ive let it idle for 10mins but no good, its also miss firing a bit which i take it due to the tappets not opening the valves.

Whats the best way to prime and drain old oil out.

[Edited on 5/6/07 by grusks2]

Change the oil and filter using the correct oil. Take for a good road test , that normally cures the problem

I flushed the system with oil and changed the filter then put new 5/30w oil, but its not sva yet, so looks like a sneek round the block again, without blowing a gasket.

A mechanic friend of mine advised me that you need to get all the oil out of the tappets. The engine sound bad to start and they will fill up properly. if you dont the hydraulics dont function properly hence your misfire.

Hope this helps

ian

Whats the best way to remove the oil, i took them out and left them over night to drain out, some said about placing them under pressure to force it out, not sure how thats done.

If you can give it a run around the block. They just need the oil getting round them. Sitting idling will take ages to do it.

I've heard somewhere that the zetec oil pump needs priming if drained and the correct filter with the valve in it keeps the oil up when the motors not running.

May be totally on the wrong track but worth checking.

Do you know it's the tappets rattling? If it's blown a head gasket, did it get really hot? If it did and its picked up on the piston skirts, that sounds like tappets.

Zetecs, when they have been overheated - as in having blown a head gasket - can suffer from movement/distortion of valve seats. This is a common cause of subsequent misfires.

Did you get head skimmed and valve seatings vacuum tested?

You cannot empty hydraulic tappets by draining them overnight! They must be emptied before reinstallation and this may be your problem.

Common method is warm them up (say with a fan heater) to thin the oil and then compress gently in a vice, using a spacer to reach the central plunger. Squeeze gently, release and repeat until the plunger goes spongy. I have a tool for stripping them but you can sometimes strip them by banging them sharply on a metal workbench until the centre plunger drops out. If you do this, you'll find a small ball valve in the plunger bit when you get it out. This needs poking with something like a scriber point to release the pressure within. reassemble and use no oil. They will fill quickly from the engine.

As has been said filling on tickover can take forever. Sometimes you need to drive the car briskly for 10 minutes.

The temp gauge was between 95 – 100 deg max when went but it did dump most of its water in the sump, so i don’t know if the gauge was reading true due to lack of water by the sender.

The head and block was skimmed when the engine was first built, the engine had done less than 2 miles (round the block twice) but run up in the garage a lot.

Still not sure what caused the gasket to let go, it looks like oil/muck in the bottom of a bolthole stopping me from tightening it properly.

When i had blown the gasket and pulled back in my garage, the tappets sounded fine its only since i removed them and the head its making the noise.

Im wondering if the old watery oil is still in them, causing them not to work or as you stated something in the head is wrong.

[Edited on 5/6/07 by grusks2]

Are you sure that you put them back in the same places as they came out of, as this is critical.

99.9% think so, i pulled each one out and placed them on a board and wrote on the board each number.

If for some un-known reason i forgot how to count to 16, and have put 2 round the wrong way (not that i would know what ones were if i did), what can be done.

Providing you bleed them off it makes no difference where you put them back

After a lot of head scratching for a month whilst getting ready for my SVA, i sussed it, the new head gasket ( Burtons multi shim style) was far to thin.

The standard ford gasket is 1.73mm; the multi shim is 0.54mm thick, thus making the pistons tap the underside of the head and not noisy tappets.

Popped a new standard ford gasket on today and hay presto the noise has gone.

Good week all round as I passed my SVA yesterday first time, WOO HOO