Tony, Your problem may well be just a hydraulic tappet that wont pump up. The classic fix is to put about 1/2 -2/4 pint of Marvel Mystery Oil in the crankcase. In England this is known as Red-Ex upper cylinder lubricant. It does a great job of dissolving deposits,varnish etc that accumulate in the engine and cause rings, tappets etc to stick. You can pour a little down the carburettor throat too at a fast idle and it will lubricate the top of the engine well and do a de-coke. Do it out in the country as it makes a lot of smoke. If you can bear it , warm up the engine then rev it quite hard, to get the oil pressure high. If it gets a bit quieter, go for a good run. This may fix it though the usual disclaimers apply. Its not an unusual problem. My '84 does it sometimes too. Strangely, if I start the van and then shut it off before it warms up, it is much more prone to be noisy than if I drive it till its hot before stopping it. I sincerely hope that this is your problem as the fix is cheap. Cheers, Steve |
Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of
Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection
will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!
Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com
The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.
Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.