Date:         Sun, 15 Oct 95 14:41 CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         EF0JPB1@mvs.cso.niu.edu
Subject:      Lifter Noise

>From: amunro@AMUNRO.SEANET.COM(Alex Munro)

>First is what sounds like lifter noise.  It's one lifter and
>I only heard it run for about three minutes at idle.  The
>owner said the sound goes away after it warms up.  He
>started to mention that his mechanic told him that a lot
>Vanagons do this but I'm skeptical.  Any thoughts?  Is there
>some miracle rhino-snot that I can dump in and flush the
>lifters with?

I do not know about *a lot* of Vanagons, but my 84 does the
lifter noise too.  It generally does go away after a couple
of minutes.  I have noticed it to be worst when I drive,
park for a 30 minutes or so, then start driving again.  My
pseudo-VW dealer used to put a GM elixer in the oil and that
did seem to help, but the problem does come back.  I see
that Liquid Wrench suggests (on the can) adding some to the
oil to help with sticky lifters as well.  I have not tried
that.

My Vanagon has about 90K miles on the odometer, but the
lifter noise has been a problem for several years.  When I
had the head gasket problem at about 50K, my mechanic said
two of the lifters had NO fluid in them at all and replaced
them, so it can be a nuisance but may also lead to other
problems.

Anyone else?

-Jim Bryant (ef0jpb1@mvs.cso.niu.edu)