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92 Loyale Valve Clatter


Cyama
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I have resurrected my Loyale 4WD with the 3EAT auto trans.  I replaced the timing belt while I was trying to address the low oil pressure problem. Since a new oil pump is not available, I replace the mickey mouse gasket and water pump.  Even though oil pressure improved a little, the valves clatter intermittently, even when oil pressure is up. What is the remedy?  I want to make a plan and gather the necessary parts before hand.  In addition, are there some modifications I can make to gain additional horsepower?  

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It’s not the valves clattering - it’s dead hydraulic lash adjusters that aren’t holding their oil pressure. 

The remedy is to replace them or have them serviced, someone will know. 

I can’t remember those details as I’ve done the most common and ultimate performance upgrade for an L series - an EJ conversion ;) 

As for your low oil pressure, pull the pressure relief valve’s spring and ball, clean them and their “place of residence”.  Fitting a 2 or 3mm spacer between the spring and the retaining bolt can help with any loss of spring tension too. I’ve done this twice without any issues. 

Cheers 

Bennie

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Another common cause of the lifter tick is air sucked into the oil via the oil pump shaft seal.  Replace the seal.

There are o rings between the heads and the cam towers.  Those can add to leaks, loosing pressure at the lifters.  Oem only.  If they are original,  they are long overdue for replacement.  

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Oil pump shaft seal. Cam tower o-rings. Bad lifters. Shifted lifter buckets. Cam spray bar pressure relief valve spring..... pick your culprit. It's usually a losing battle.

You can solve the whole problem with a single performance modification - set it on fire and buy a Legacy. Seriously - it's a losing battle with an orphaned product. If the engine gets fixed you will just have that 3AT transmission fail on you and that's pretty much a dead end also. The oil pump drive shafts strip out the splines and you can't buy those anymore either. 

GD

Edited by GeneralDisorder
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26 minutes ago, GeneralDisorder said:

Oil pump shaft seal. Cam tower o-rings. Bad lifters. Shifted lifter buckets. Cam spray bar pressure relief valve spring..... pick your culprit. It's usually a losing battle.

You can solve the whole problem with a single performance modification - sell it to someone here and buy a Legacy. Seriously - it's a losing battle with an orphaned product. If the engine gets fixed you will just have that 3AT transmission fail on you and that's pretty much a dead end also. The oil pump drive shafts strip out the splines and you can't buy those anymore either. 

GD

Fixed that for you, all due respect of course :D

Dan

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11 hours ago, Dee2 said:

if noise persists, do an oil flush.  Then try refilling with a mix of 3 quart of oil and a quart of automatic transmission fluid.  Run that for few hundred miles and see if the noise goes away.  Mine did.

How many new oil leaks did you find after this?  :P

Cheers 

Bennie

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There is no non metal parts in our hydraulic lifters ...I thought there were rubber Vinton seals or such. I have a set of Mizpahs reconditioned units and they won't even tick when gauge pressure drops to zero!

Too such oil over the level mark can cause aeration of engine oil. Does a change of oil help? Use a pre drop cleaner first

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Cheapest way to attempt an improvement is if you are confident in your re-seal rev the wizz out of it up towards redline without being inattentive hold it there a good 30 seconds or more and often that last lifter in the oil line will Finally load up and quiet down. 

You won’t kill the engine trying , don’t sweat it. 

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It can take 100 miles or so before they quiet down after sitting or being apart for extended periods. 

But it probably is something in the system  

1. Reseal the oil pump

2. Every single ticking EA/ER engine I’ve encountered has quit ticking with a new oil pump (not counting the honorable mentions in #3 below). But they all rusted away around here 10+ years ago so Im talking about much younger ones. A Subaru forum owner (not this one obviously) was trying to remedy ticking with multiple pump reseals with no success.  I gifted a new oil pump to him and bibidi bobidi boo - no more ticking.  Granted they’re not available any more but try a few used ones and see what happens? Even If the noise changes that may suggest the pump is the cause and you can go from there.

id like to know what about the pumps causes it and if it can and remedied  

3. Replace the HLAs. If it’s HLA specific ive been able to deduce which one or two HLAs it is and swap them out without replacing them all. In my limited experience this has occurred in problematic engines with prior, or existing, overheating issues. 

Edited by idosubaru
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I've run EA82s since 1988.  The only thing I ever did regarding lifter tick is this -

new shaft seal on the oil pump. [and it's other o rings]

Resealed from head gaskets up when the leaks got ridiculous.  Usually by 150K miles / 10 years.

Run 100% synthetic Amsoil 10W-40.  The synthetic  changeover  gets made shortly after owning any car / engine. 

Sometimes it went away quickly.  Sometimes, on engines I got with more miles with unknown service quality, longer.  Sometimes would come and go for  quite a while while the Amsoil slowly cleaned the gunk out I'm guessing.

 

 

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Thanks for everyone's input.  I would venture to guess it's one of the nicer ones still on the road. Being a Nevada car it has zero rust along the fenders and tailgate where I see alot of other loyales suffer.  Anyway enough about that.  I don't think it's ever had the cam tower o rings replaced. I resealed the oil pump at the time I replace the water pump and belt. I guess I didn't go far enough with the cam towers.  

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If you feel like it's the lifters themselves, here's a little resource for potentially sourcing some reconditioned ones. I haven't gone through them myself but I know some people here have and have had good experiences. Plus at $4.50/lifter, it's not too expensive either. Not sure if it'd solve your clatter though

 

https://mizpahprecision.com/pricing.htm

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  • 1 month later...

My 90 has the typical slow oil leak. I noticed that it will tick when too low (obviously), but also if it's been a bit since an oil change. I replaced the oil pump gaskets when I redone gaskets and seals bringing it back to life. The oil pump is gear driven so unless it is worn excessively, the internal pressure spring is weak, or it is not sealed properly, the pump shouldn't fail. May want to try an oil change and some seafoam or marvel mystery oil to see if it helps (should you have a sticking lifter or clogged oil passage). It's a cheap first step and if it doesn't help the issue, atleast the oil is fresh.

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On 11/15/2018 at 10:31 PM, Cyama said:

Thanks for everyone's input.  I would venture to guess it's one of the nicer ones still on the road. Being a Nevada car it has zero rust along the fenders and tailgate where I see alot of other loyales suffer.  Anyway enough about that.  I don't think it's ever had the cam tower o rings replaced. I resealed the oil pump at the time I replace the water pump and belt. I guess I didn't go far enough with the cam towers.  

New oil pumps have fixed every TOD i've ever encountered which wouldn't go away with a simple oil pump reseal.  (ignoring blown headgasket engines which has seized HLA's).  Maybe it's a combo effect and cam orings/hla's are a big contributor, but pumps always fixed it for me.  With higher mileages and age now the HLA's, internal tolerances, and seals are going to have a higher prevalence for sure.  with the supply of new oil pumps being zero there's little choice but to try a few used ones, reseal the thing and install new HLA's.  But if yours is in great condition, based on my past experience there's a very high chance of the TOD disappearing if you got another pump or figured out what causes the pumps to do that. 

The weird thing to me is none of the pumps i ever replaced looked problematic, the cars ran perfectly (besides the noise), and resealing the oil pump did not help.  I'm not sure why that is and I never mic'ed/tested them - but there has to be a causative reason.  If that could be determined there might be a way to refurbish or enhance existing pumps which dont (or rarely) seem to actually fail. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by idosubaru
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