I just purchased a rebuilt short block and the shop I bought it from took my heads and had them gone through (to what extent I am not sure) and bolted them on to the block for me. I recently put the engine into my VW based baja bug. I am getting a noise that sounds like a collapsed or partial collapsed hla. The first time I took the valve covers and rocker arms off I found one completely collapsed adjsuter and two that were not pumped up all the way. I purchased three new adjusters from Subaru, bled them and put everything back together. Fired motor up and after ten seconds the noise was back. I took everything apart again and all of the adjuster were extremely firm. I took apart the rocker arm assemblies and cleaned everything and blew out the oil passages with air. After all was back together and running the noise came back. I just bought all new adjusters from RockAuto and put them in today. Started car up and after ten - fifteen seconds the noise came back. It does not go away when warm, gets quieter at high RPM, momentarily goes away with a quick blip of the throttle, but will get increasing loud if you slowly apply the throttle. Any ideas?

Edited September 13, 201411 yr by Blu Bug

Additional information: I got mixed up during the removal of the rocker arm assembly and did not follow the bolt removal sequence as outline in the manual I have. Could I have bent something?

Update: After taking apart the rocker arm assembly and inspecting the adjusters I was convinced that this is not my problem. I bought a stethascope (sp) and found the noise was the loudest when probing the block just under the intake manifold.

Make sure it's not the timing tensioner flopping around.

The new style one peice tensioners are finicky and fail if you look at them wrong.

If you have the old style two peice tensioner, those have to be compressed VERY slowly or the seals blow out internally and cause it to bounce around.

Is a failed tensioner an obvious thing at first glance or does it show up while the motor is running?

You probably won't be able to tell its bad when the engine is not running.

 

With the engine running you'll see the tensioner bouncing around.

You should only need to pull the drivers end timing cover and look in from the side with a flashlight to see if the tensioner is moving/ bouncing around.