TheSamba.com :: View topic - 82 Westy - pinging noise regarless of timing and other fun s

Fri Nov 21, 2008 1:58 pm

Hello All - I have been wrestling with this for 4 days:

82 Westy
2.0 aircooled
Weber 2 bbl Progressive (yeah, I know)

Got my Westy back from having my mechanic do a rear brake job on my westy. He also set the timing (he replaced points and condenser when I first bought the car but did not time the engine (first strike). The PO had the timing at a total advance of 60 BTDC. I can't belive my mechanic did not check the timing or valves when I brought it in to them initially to check out.

It ran great except for a pinging noise which I thought was detonation from the timing being to advanced (42 degrees total including dist. vac. advance)

I retarded the timing to 7.0 then 5 BTDC, then 0 and the ping did not go away. The ping is not steady would not happen durring idle, but would happen on acceleration and deceleration. It was not a steady ping but random.

Did compression test (cold) later realized that I should do it warm- had
1=85
2-85
3-100
4-100

So I went back to square one and set the dwell to 48, retimed and adjusted the carb - same pinging.

Ran 1/2 bottle of seafoam through the carb, ran worse - number 2 cylinder was not affected idle when disconnected spark.

Air is pumping out of the crankcase breather hose

Ping still there....

did my first valve adjustment on cylinder 1 and 2. Wiped off spark plugs (they were black (dry black) from the seafoam I think),

The intake valve on # 2 took twice as many turns (5) to get clearance as the other valves. The car was cool - not cold and made two complete turns after contact

The balance test on #2 cylinder is much better (same difference as other cylinders when spark is taken away).
Ran the car - the lifters were clanking (well something was that sounded like lifter noise I have had in the past). So drove it around to get rid of it...after what had been about 20 minutes (usually goes away in about 5-8 min.) it had not quieted down so I parked it and took a look.

The timing was showing 0 (TDC), which was about 7.5-8 yesterday. Retimed to 7.5 btdc and 30 btdc at 3000 rpm without carb vaccum - and took it back out. it was hesitating at low RPMs and not running great, but running - another 8 minutes and the noise was still there - besides some hesitation in low RPMS ran pretty well.

Brought it back home to rest.
My big concerns are:
1. I am still getting some pinging, but not as much as before (hard to tell with clanking going on).

2. I am getting air pumpiing (pulsing) out of the crankcase breather hose.
3. The clanking has not gone away after adjusting valves

Tomorrow I will:
Confirm TDC with static timing light
readjust the valves (cold) - both sides
retune
compression test (Warm).

Any ideas or suggestions out there? I have been doing quite a bit of searching here and reading on:
carb tuning, tuning, valve adjustment, etc.
This is a great tool for me - I am a big fan.

Best regards,
Frank

have been running

Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:14 pm

Wow. :shock:

What distributor do you have in there?

I assume you are planning your re-build shortly with 85psi in the cylinders. Start looking for a better fuel delivery system. Do you have any of the original FI stuff around anymore? How about a good pair of dual carbs? Whatever, you should also plan on invesitng in a suitable distributor at the same time.

Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:16 pm

Frank,
Unless your 82 has an earlier engine it does not need to have the valves adjusted, hydraulic lifters are maintenance free unless you changed rockers or something that requires you to reset the initial valve lash.

Air pulsing out of the hose is normal, after all the its pistons,rods and cranks flying around inside, just so long as you are not getting oily smoke coming out of the breather.

Improper initial adjustment of the valves with hydraulic lifters will cause excessive noise.

Id say get your valves set as per Bentley and time it at 7.5 BTDC. Go from there, no idea about the pinging other than something awry mechanically if you messed with the timing that much and there is no improvement in the "ping"

Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:41 pm

I had read in several posts here which stated that one should adjust hydraulic lifters when you fist buy the vehicle and then about every 12 months after that. i have also read that they don't need adjustment, but I needed to figure out what was going on with #2 cylinder after the balance test indicated that I had problems with #2.

Not sure in the distrubutor, it looks like a standard vaccum advance dist. that I have seen in pics here.

Thanks for the input so far.
Cheers,
Frank

Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:51 pm

Suggestion:

Maybe the problem is that someone has set the lifters like they were solids and not hydraulics. Instead of setting a "gap"like solid lifters, you need to be less than 0.00". Hydraulics can be adjusted warm and need to be pumped up to do it correctly.

http://www.ratwell.com/technical/HydraulicLifters.html

http://www.bostonengine.com/articles/hydraulicll.htm

Warm it up well tonight and after it cools down so you can touch it adjust the hydraulic lifters to 0 clearence and then turn them another 1.5 turns past touching. That is called setting the pre-load on these hydraulics to 1.5mm. While you are in there, use your "big meat screwdriver" to push on the top of the rocker arms at each valve location to see if any of them are "squishy". Squishy implies there is air in the lifter and the lifter cannot be adjusted with air in there, it needs to be full of oil. Running the engine will usually pump up the lifter, but if it is air locked you may need to bench bleed them as described in both those ratwell and boston engine links.

Also pull off both valve covers and confirm that you really are at TDC when the TDC indicator on the fan http://www.ratwell.com/technical/FindTimingMark.html

lines up with the TDC or "0" on the timing scale.

Then have someone move the engine back and forth around TDC and observe the valves at #3 cylinder rocking back and forth like you were tapping your fingers on the table. If #3 valves are moving a little and #1 is not, you are at TDC for #1. The distributor rotor will get you close also.

Once you get the lifters adjusted, do another compression test this wayso that you will generate accurate information on the engine status.

http://www.ratwell.com/technical/FAQ/FAQContent.html#0101

http://www.ratwell.com/technical/FAQ/FAQContent.html#0105

Fri Nov 21, 2008 3:02 pm

Thanks Randy. Good info here. I think the valves were adjusted correctly (except for #2 intake). If how many turns it takes to get to 0 lash is any indication.... it took about 2. 5 turns on each valve except for the #2 intake, which took about 5 complete turns to get to 0 lash (or initial contact).

I have read most of the ratwell articles, they are a great reference.
I appreciate it!
-Frank

Fri Nov 21, 2008 3:33 pm

Pinging may be due to a sticky breaker plate assembly. The points are attached to a plate that sits on top of another plate and they are supposed to slide over each other when the vac advance arm pulls on the top plate. A good lube with some penetrating oil should temporarily fix it but you should really disassemble and lube between the plates with some anti seize. While you're in there, underneath the plates are a set of bobweights that fly outwards with increase of speed to change advance, this is the mechanical advance part of the distributor. Some times these bobweights can get sticky too and need freeing up and some lube. This is why most distributors have a little felt pad in the top of the distributor shaft underneath the rotor button, you're meant to put a few drops of oil in there every time you change or adjust points, the pad holds the oil so it slowly releases onto the parts needing lube.

Regards,

Matt.

Fri Nov 21, 2008 3:54 pm

Thanks Matt. I did do a "suck" test and watch the plates move in and out. And applied oil in the shaft and lube on the side of the shaft. i will dismantle and lube the rest of the distributor - good idea! It looks like the distributor is stock, so might be time for a new one. Thanks again for your suggestions.
Frank

Fri Nov 21, 2008 6:42 pm

Randy in Maine wrote: Squishy implies there is air in the lifter and the lifter cannot be adjusted with air in there, it needs to be full of oil. Running the engine will usually pump up the lifter, but if it is air locked you may need to bench bleed them as described in both those ratwell and boston engine links.

Lifters can be adjusted when they are not pumped up, just use extra care finding the zero lash contact point.

If you have an air lock and they will not pump up, back the adjustment screw off to give a couple of thousandths of lash and run the engine for a few minutes. They should pump right up. Reset the preload once the lifters firm up.

You might want to add a quart of Marvel Mystery Oil in your crankcase to clean the lifters if they still resist pumping up.

Sat Nov 22, 2008 11:59 am

Thanks Wildthings.
-F

Sun Nov 23, 2008 8:31 am

i refuse to adjust lifter preload per bentley...depending on the type of lifter i run either gapped like a solid, tight 0, or 1/4 turn.....the meyle units will lose their circlips (the paperclip style retainer) when they are gapped but i have never had a failure with the febi units.....i have found just in experimenting that the engines perform far better with this setup....if you would like to see more detailed explanations for the reasoning behind that adjustment try searching the type4rum over at stf........

as for the pinging....are you using really low octane fuel....or did you get a bad tank of gas by chance......might be worth plumbin in a jerry can to rule that out.....

regarding the compression issues and the screwy adjustment on #2 it sounds like its time to do a leak down check if you can......assumin you have a compressor the gauge can be easily made or bought from harbor freight for relatively cheap

best of luck

Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:47 pm

hey you... Thanks.

As far as fuel, I have been using premium since I bought it (3 months ago) and have refuled since the pinging started (1/4 tank to 3/4 tank from different station - premium) and put some seafoam in the tank as well. The pinging might be a warn out V-belt - I will take it off tomorrow for a brief (1 min) test to determine. The pinging was less after tightning the belt, but the belt is very wobbly. I will do another compression test tomorrow as well. I don't have the tools to do a leak down test yet.

I did reset the valves at 1.5 turns and it is running very quiet (except for the pinging)... I found out that I had #2 valves out of sequence the first time I tried.

I did notice that my plug on #1 cylinder cleaned up (white core) after the valve adjustment. #2 plug was less white and more yellow. Evidently the seafoam got a lot of carbon moving around.

Again, thanks to all for your input. I am learning...
-Frakn